


under the sun

by goddcoward



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Clones, Feral Behavior, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, LMAOOOOO NVM, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reincarnation, Soulmates, definitely not a fix-it of any kind ksdhfadshf, some nice stuff as a little break from last chapter lmao, wet dreams of a very weird variety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2019-12-25 23:51:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 21,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18271610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddcoward/pseuds/goddcoward
Summary: just assorted drabbles + shortfics that don't go anywhere else. various pairings but probably mostly madatobi lmaoedit: i take requests!! im pretty busy so i might not fill them soon but feel free to drop them in the comments section :-)





	1. crowded

**Author's Note:**

> im just listening to hozier's 'movement' rn and im having such a good time FUCK yeah im LIVING
> 
> it goes like fucken. woooooeooeooooe and im dying this is lesbian centric content and i love it so much
> 
> ch. 1 - madatobi, cloning jutsu
> 
> tobirama invents a new special kind of clone and he just sort of. forgets to keep an eye on them so one of the clones gets drunk and decides that trying to sex up madara is a Fantastic idea
> 
> ch. 2 - madatobi, hidden relationship
> 
> what it says on the tin. theyre gay and in love and there's a war
> 
> ch. 3 - madatobi hidden relationship part 2
> 
> for the record this is all kitsunesongs' fault so if you have an issue,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,blame me lmao i had already written this when they commented

[KAKUBUNRETSU NO JUTSU – TRUE CLONING TECHNIQUE]

Most somatic cell division and tissue growth occurs via mitosis, a biological process that creates two daughter cells, both possessing the same number and type of chromosomes as the parent cell; essentially, two identical copies are made from one original source.

The same principle, when applied to cloning jutsu, can create permanent clones that do not disperse when struck with sufficient force, making them superior in this manner to the Shadow Clone; the only method of disposing of them is to kill them, although this will still transfer memories and some sensations to the original.

Note: clones appear to have their own free will and personalities, although these are identical to that of the cloner.

This may prove to be somewhat troublesome.

\--

Uchiha Madara was having a good day until the damned albino Senju showed up.

In and of itself, this statement is a perfectly normal one for this particular man – the hour is rare when he is not at least mildly agitated with Senju Tobirama in some manner – but it should be noted that he had not yet eaten lunch, was short on sleep, and had only returned from a mission last night.

Normally, Madara has enough control over his temper to keep himself calm in the presence of Him.

Normally, it wouldn’t end up like _this._

His face is inches from the Senju’s, and this close, he can’t ignore the silver-white spray of his long eyelashes or the veins of bloody red shooting through the man’s irises and lending their normal dark crimson a sort of ethereal vibrancy that can’t be _real_. He can’t ignore the faint constellations of freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheeks. He can’t ignore the soft, chapped lips, a delicious pale pink that he wants to bite and lick and kiss until it’s a bruised red. The way his mouth moves as he speaks is nothing less than captivating, and it takes a good minute for him to actually hear what the other is saying instead of hyperfocusing with such laser intensity on the way he looks when he’s saying it.

“…ara. _Madara._ Sign this, will you?”

It’s the work of barely a moment for Madara to reach for his brush and sign the document with slow, sweeping strokes, and something dark and feral within him _delights_ at the way Tobirama’s pretty eyes dip down to track the movements of his hands, so purposeful and lazy and elegant.

Very Nara-like, he thinks with some amusement, and he’ll have to send Shikama a gift basket of some sort for permitting him to copy her purposeful indolence with his Sharingan, willingly or not. Tobirama is all but _transfixed,_ and although sketching out the kanji of his name takes barely a moment, Madara thinks that whole hours pass by as he does it, neither of them looking down at the scroll.

There is some invisible force dragging him in towards this man. There’s some kind of gravity pulling, pulling, pulling him into the black hole of the Senju heir, and the supernova at its center is oh-so-lovely; Madara wants to burn himself up on Tobirama and the strange tug of his energy. He wants to bury himself in these arms and that ass until he knows nothing beyond sweaty pale skin and the deep rumble of his voice.

Tobirama’s eyelids flutter, shading the blown black of his pupils with light moon gray and making him appear almost _bored,_ if not for the hot, heavy excitement of his molten-ocean chakra and the hummingbird thrum of his pulse in his throat. Madara can’t keep himself from tracking every minute movement he can get his greedy Sharingan on – the hitch of his Adam’s apple as he swallows dryly, the red-pink of his tongue as it darts out to catch at his lips, the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathes faster and faster and faster.

 _Beautiful,_ whispers Madara, entirely unaware that he’s speaking out loud until the other is suddenly staring at him with wide, shocked eyes, blinking a little too hard and too quickly to be anything but caught completely off guard.

“You – you really think so?”

His breath smells like spearmint and sake, and something low and ugly rankles in Madara’s gut at the thought that the Senju is only approaching him so intimately because he’s _drunk,_ but he quickly and ruthlessly squashes it. Now is not the time to be jealous, he has to remind himself. He’s not the star of some shallow, petty romance story, and Tobirama is most certainly no maiden. No, he’s definitely a _man,_ with a jawline that could cut glass and a frame thickened by hard, wiry muscle and legs that he wants wrapped around his waist for hours on end—

“I’m gay,” Madara blurts out with a truly astonishing lack of self-control. “I’m so, _so_ gay, and you’re so pretty, you fucking Senju, so you better hurry up and kiss me or kill me because if I have to wait another damn moment, you’re not going to like what I do to you.”

He’s cut off by the firm, warm press of soft lips up against his, and he drops the brush he’d forgotten he was holding as a heavy body is suddenly wrapping around his and sliding into his lap, and _oh,_ that’s such a perfect fit, this man _belongs_ here—

Madara is too absorbed in his new partner to notice Hashirama’s chakra rapidly approaching.

Perhaps more importantly, he’s too absorbed in his new partner to notice _Tobirama’s_ chakra rapidly approaching, and so he’s taken completely by surprised when the Senju brothers explode into his office with all the subtlety of a hurricane and a good deal of flailing.

The Tobirama in the doorway sees the Tobirama in Madara’s lap and flushes a violent red, and he almost seems – _shy,_ like that, looking at where his clone (?) is digging through Madara’s pants to get to his hardening cock like he’ll die without it inside him, like he needs to be fucked more than he needs to breathe.

Hashirama sees the Tobirama in Madara’s lap and goes horrifyingly still, and at the first drop of killing intent he hurls the man off his lap and makes like an arrow for the window.

There’s barely enough time for Madara to flicker safely home and slam the door shut behind him before an earth-shattering _roar_ echoes through the village, and he spares a moment to pray to whatever god is listening that if Tobirama really does like him – _like_ him like him – then he’ll talk to his brother before Madara fucking _dies._


	2. lowlife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uwu im back.............here's a lil angstier madatobi w/ an ambiguous ending :) the original intent was happy healthy loving (hidden) relationship so that's what i wrote just w/ a lil Spiciness
> 
> this is named after poppy's lowlife which is a fucking bop btw it's so good......big madatobi hours

Inky black hair pools on the floor beneath them as they roll together. Head thrown back, white hair mussed and tangled, skin gleaming with a film of sweat; this is where Tobirama has always belonged, speared on his lover’s cock with nothing in the world but the two of them.

They have to leave Fire Country altogether to find these moments of stolen peace. An onsen in Tea Country, well familiar with the two of them by this point; hot water and hotter hands and billowing clouds of steam are familiar sensations in their lovemaking, now, and it sets the scene for their trysts, lone hours of serenity and affection broken up by weeks of war and violence and the clash of Uchiha against Senju.

Their time together is taken against the grain of the ongoing conflict, and sometimes, when he’s spread out beneath Madara, pushing back up into his frantic thrusting and gasping in sync with him, Tobirama will think about Hashirama’s reaction and laugh privately to himself.

Peace with the Uchiha, indeed. 

If only he knew.

It’s never brought up, how they grasp and cling to each other, how Tobirama will moan Madara’s name like it’s the only word he’s ever known, how Madara will leave possessive bites and bruises littering the blank canvas of his body. It’s never discussed between them, the spark of gravity that draws them together time and time again, the very same force that knots their hearts into one even as it separates them.

 _I love you,_ Tobirama doesn’t say, and _I cherish you,_ Madara doesn’t respond in return; this is the law that governs their intimacy. This is the rule that permits them to be together at all – if that line were to be blurred, if the finite boundaries of their not-relationship were to suddenly become permeable, they might break and collapse into each other, never to fall apart again, and then what would happen?

Would they run away to some long-distant land to live together without either of their Clans, without any of their precious people? Would Hashirama fall to Madara, or Izuna to Tobirama? Is it simply their fate, to always be defined by the death and the violence that partitions their sex?

Hands on hips, skin against skin, mouths firmly connected. The molten touch of black on white and white on black, the blazing heat of another body so close, _so_ close to his own, the scent of sweat and come and floral bath salts coloring the air. Pulling at hair, clawing at shoulders, kissing like the only air they’ll ever get can be found past the lips of another.

Blood dripping down sweat-soaked cheeks, the screeching clash of metal on metal, the fervent haze of chakra thrown up by high-level jutsus; Tobirama’s fights with Izuna are nothing like his _fights_ with Madara, but something in his mind can’t help but connect the two, and when he meets his rival’s sword with his own, he thinks of the gorgeous muscles of the Uchiha Clan Head’s back, thinks of the woolly scratch of wavy black hair, thinks of spinning Sharingan eyes that he can meet without fear, because his secret love would never harm him. 

They’ve never talked about it, but of that Tobirama is certain. It is one of the foundations of his existence; the sun rises in the east, water is wet, and Madara loves him with such passion that it easily outshines the stars.

He is rarely ever wrong, but _oh,_ if only he _knew._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprise!!!! the thing that tobirama doesn't know is that madara actually loves him More than that. wholesome mlm :-)


	3. moonshadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which tobirama is injured and madara is late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :-))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
> 
> EDIT: cant believe i fucking forgot but. major character death warning for this chapter

There used to be biting, clawing, scratching, snarling. There used to be muttered insults and malicious red eyes. There used to be a ferocious scowl on Tobirama’s beautiful face when he looked at Madara, and the frozen veracity of his hate always simmered in a jarring contrast against the unbearable heat of his ass gripping Madara’s dick, but. 

Now there is a _softness_ there that hurts more than anything else. Now there is a warm glow in those same eyes, a smile crinkling the outer edges, narrowed irises and blown-wide pupils like a pleased cat. That shade of ruby, that specific hue of red, that one bloody jewel-tone is forever burned into Madara’s memory, and whenever he closes his own eyes, he sees the lively light of Tobirama’s; whenever he sleeps, he dreams fitfully about pale skin and paler hair and a razor-blade tongue. His subconscious is plagued by traitorous thoughts of an endless intelligence sharper than the man’s many swords and a curiosity unmatched by any force in the universe.

Now, when Madara thinks of _peace,_ he pictures the Senju heir tucked into his side, squinting his eyes in his delicate smile and gazing over at him, at his _enemy,_ like he’s the only thing in existence. Now, there’s a hole in his heart that was never there before, a grief that weighs on him more than the deaths of his brothers, even, since his Tobirama is _still alive._ His precious person is _right there_ for the taking, and he is off-limits. What would they do, if they knew he’d found his love and was too much of a _coward_ to do anything about it, even though he has the power to?

Hashirama would actually kill him if he found out; Madara shivers at the mere thought of what would happen if only his best friend knew.

If only…

When Tobirama stumbles into their onsen, red slicking down his face and his throat and pouring out of his chest in too much volume, he’s gripped by the talons of a fear greater than anything he’s ever known. He’s – he’s _terrified_ in a way he’s never been before, because when his Senju dies – _if_ he dies, if if if, _if_ he dies, Sage only knows what he’d do in his grief. Surely, the madness would consume him, and Madara knows himself well enough to know that could very well mean the end of the world as the people know it. Fitting, really, that the end of _his_ world would bring about the inception of the apocalypse for everyone else, but – no.

Tobirama’s still bleeding. His heart is still beating. He _lives._

Madara pours his chakra into that split-open, too-still chest with desperation that seizes his whole body and blanks his mind. He has to save his Tobirama, he _has_ to, the unthinkable – the unthinkable _cannot happen._ He is as strong as the God of Shinobi, but all of that legendary prowess won’t mean a damn thing if his love dies in his arms because of a wound that just won’t close.

He is no medic-nin, not by any means at all, but when the constant flow of blood slows to a stop, when the gaping crack slicing open Tobirama’s torso from hips to collarbones narrows and scars over just a little bit, he’s consumed by a hope that makes him years lighter. It’s almost like the demons aren’t there at all when he’s able to look down and see the hesitant rise and fall of a pale abdomen.

If only he knew real techniques. If only he _knew._

Madara runs, runs, runs back to the Uchiha compound, faster and slower than he’s ever gone before; Tobirama is limp and frighteningly still in his arms, but he checks every half hour and the slight pulse in his cold, bony wrist continues to beat on. The gash has been closed with a dangerously rough Energy Stitch and plastered with bandages, and the cover _holds,_ holds long enough for Madara to spirit him home and flicker into his Clan’s healing tent, where surely, Aiji will be able to fix him.

 When she sees his tattoos, sees his face, sees the Senju crest on his ripped-open robes and says no, Lord Madara, I will not heal him, he nearly cuts her into two with his gunbai for the _disrespect—!_ How _dare_ she just sit there and watch him bleed! How _dare_ she refuse to save his precious life!

He can’t force her to do it, and her dark eyes are stony and cold when she glares up at him and tells him that she will not spare the demon who has savaged her family. She will not give the gift of survival to someone who has denied that very same gift to everyone she’s known and loved. 

Without the intervention of a true healer, Tobirama’s wound festers beneath the bandages and the pinkish scar tissue, eating away at his chest and his vital organs with black-green bitterness and weakening him into a semi-permanent fugue state. The infection saps away at his strength as hours pass until he can no longer even thrash in his agony, too drained of power to do anything but lay ice-cold and deadly still, bleeding toxic blood all over Madara’s futon. Madara himself does his best to nurse him when he falls into delirium and is unable to make sense of the world when he wakes, but he is no healer, knows no healer who can help, and he can’t just take Tobirama to the Senju and demand— 

The Senju. Hashirama. _Hashirama will assist,_ Hashirama loves his brother, Hashirama can save Tobirama from the brink of death itself when no one else could— 

 _Hashirama is down by the river._ He is able, he is willing, and most importantly of all, he is _accessible,_ and Madara’s heart soars so high in his chest at the thought of Tobirama saved that he nearly wastes precious time in the wake of the sudden flush of his euphoria.

Madara cauterizes the creeping sickness with a careful flash of Raiton and ignores the way the scents of burning flesh and burning disease mingle together in an acrid perfume. He ignores _everything,_ brushes brusquely past Izuna when his own brother comes in to ask what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, and solemnly he marches to the spot by the river where he can sense Hashirama moping. Tobirama is cradled delicately in his arms, but Madara only has two hands – it’s a bitch and a half to get him down to the Nakano without further aggravating his injury, and they dance on a mad line between going too slowly, allowing time for Tobirama to get sicker, and going too quickly, risking reopening the messily closed wound.

Hashirama gets up with a shout when he sees them flicker there, exploding over to onto Uchiha territory with a burst of Mokuton and a fire-fountain of emerald-green chakra.

In Madara’s arms, Tobirama goes terrifyingly pale, and he collapses to the ground, still holding his not-boyfriend. His heart thunders in his chest and blood roars in his ears, and all he can see is the red and the pink and the diseased green-white of Tobirama’s open chest. 

Hashirama might be shouting, might be trying to attack him; the river might be flooding, for all he knows. The world could be ending and the only thing Madara would focus on is the fragile stutter of Tobirama’s heart, still going even after hours without treatment for what is almost certainly a mortal wound.

Everything is black and blurry, and when Hashirama gently forces the two of them apart, Madara is so weakened by panic that all he does is gasp in agony as they’re separated. His lover’s eyes flutter open, but in his fever, he cannot truly see; his lips move, but only blood trickles out, bubbling and dark red and so horrible to look at. 

“…ara…Madara… _Madara._ _MADARA!_ Gods, finally, there you are. What – what have you fucking _done_ to otouto, Madara, I trusted you-!” 

Hashirama – Hashirama thinks Madara would _attack his love?_ Hashirama thinks _he_ has inflicted this terrible wound? 

It’s possible that he roars like a jealous dragon, rising to spit fire at his friend at such a heinous accusation, but in his fury, he forgets just a little too quickly. He forgets just a little too much. It is his pride and his rashness and his quickness to rage that brings him down, in the end. It is these things that steal his love from him. It is his own flawed judgment that kills his Tobirama. 

He’s got his thighs locked around Hashirama’s neck, squeezing tight with iron surety, choking the very life out of him for the insult. He’s busy assaulting another and _not_ tending to the dying man sprawled bonelessly on the shore, waiting helplessly for healing that will come too little, too late.

It means that he’s not by Tobirama’s side when that precious, much-loved chakra signature sputters once, twice, thrice, before winking out altogether, and yards away on the shore, his too-hot corpse lies perfectly, horribly still on the riverbank.

Madara’s heart stutters and shatters into a hundred thousand pieces in his chest, and Hashirama _shrieks,_ a long, high-pitched sound of pure agony. They nearly trip over themselves in their haste to get to the body of the man who was once the Senju heir, the man who was brother and lover both, and instead of fighting over his cooling corpse like a pair of vultures, they simply hang over it, desolate, grieving.

Izuna finds them there, hunched over Tobirama, not speaking. Madara’s cradling one too-pale, too-thin hand delicately in his, like he’ll just – wake up, at any point, and suddenly be able to hold hands again. Hashirama is raking his fingers desperately through bloodstained pink-white hair and charging supernovae of chakra through the lifeless body, but – it’s too late.

  
He’s _gone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmaoooooo hope yall enjoyed !! this hurt me to write


	4. wildest dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tobirama doesn't start seeing sex scenes until he goes through puberty btw since im not a nasty bastard or a pedophile
> 
> the little short scenes are all past lives it's kind of a reincarnation type deal that im playing with for another madatobi week fic
> 
> i wrote like 1.5K in one sitting which is more than ive been able to do in ages too so go me woohoo

“mom?”

he’s six years old the first time it happens. a sudden dizzy spell, a flash of nausea, a heatwave – and then, the memories, pouring in.

a man grown, with snow-white hair and three crimson scars drawing across his sharp face (tobirama’s face. it’s impossible, but that’s – that’s _tobirama’s face_ ). another, with a massive mane of black hair and a cruel blood-red smile.

 _i loved you,_ says not-tobirama. _i always have._  

 _i know,_ says the other man, strangely familiar in the tilt of his eyes and the crease of his brows and the shadows of his noble cheekbones. his scowl is warm somehow, but the madness in his violet irises is frosty and cold and so distant that it reminds tobirama of far-off stars, hundreds of billions of miles away and yet so bright, burning in the dark night sky. _i remember. and i love you too. i always will, koibito, no matter what you think._

there’s a weapon, a giant war fan, like the big old gunbai that’s on display in hashirama’s friend’s house, but it’s ignored as the black-haired man reaches forward to cup the face of his companion, the not-tobirama, in his palm, with an awful sort of tenderness that speaks of intense feelings long repressed. a spark, a sputter of flame, and then—

—and then tobirama watches as his alternate is consumed alive by fire. he does not scream. he barely flinches away from the unbearable heat, frozen statue-still and marble-icy. 

he just _burns_ , and although tears streak down the dark man’s cheeks, his expression doesn’t so much as twitch when a blackened, withered corpse finally collapses at his feet, the limbs twisted and charred and the entire body giving off the vile smoke of carbonized flesh.

for izuna, he knows. suicide by fire as payment for the life of a last little brother, but – the worst thing he’s done to uchiha izuna was grinding colored pencil shavings into his hair on picture day, and he’d gotten mulch down the back of his nice white shirt as compensation. they’ve hated each other with an unyielding passion ever since, but- 

he’s certainly never killed anyone, nor has he ever died for the sake of killing the wrong person. 

“yes, tobira-chan?” 

another strange dream, again featuring an adult tobirama and the dark man; this time they are dressed in traditional armor, plated and layered and lacquered in bright red and blue, standing on a precipice. they’re holding hands, armored gauntlets clutched tight to each other, fingers woven together so intimately that it makes tobirama’s heart ache just watching them.

 _hashirama-_ gasps adult tobirama, wheezing deep in his chest like tears want to come out but there are no tears left, - _hashirama’s **dead,** madara, what do i do…i can’t be the clan head…i can’t be anything, it was supposed to be **him,** it was always him…_

 _shh, shh, calm yourself,_ says the dark man, madara, pressing that narrow white head into the crook of his neck and shoulder and stroking gently at the small, soft hairs at his nape like he’s scratching a kitten instead of a grown man and a legendary shinobi. _hush, koibito, we’ll figure it out…we always do eventually, yes?_

 ** _no,_** howls adult tobirama, burying his face in the collar of the dark man’s armor and gripping tight to his robe with white-knuckled fists. _nonononononono **no,** you don’t understand, we can’t – i can’t do this without him! i can’t do **anything** without him!_

 _you can do everything without him,_ says the dark man, so cold and callous that it makes shivers run down tobirama’s spine. he feels like an invader, standing here, staring at the two of them, obviously so deep in grief that it warps their very cores; he feels like an intruder, even though he knows that’s _him._ that’s him, crying into the shoulder of an uchiha enemy, even though he doesn’t know about the centuries-long feud between them and the senju. that’s him, retreating to the safety of his lover’s arms in his darkest hour, bereft of his last (favorite) brother and so, so lonely.

and that’s – that’s uchiha madara, hashirama’s best friend, that snotty boy with the spiky hair and the sharp dark eyes.

they’re…together.

 _koibito,_ whispers madara, petting reverently at the base of his head with the gentle fingers, _there is so much we have to do…there is still so much…_

 _there’s **nothing,** _snaps adult tobirama, pulling back and shuffling away, looking at his – boyfriend? – with glassy red eyes. _there’s nothing left. just. just kill me now, will you? just let me die. i don’t want to live a life without any of my brothers. there’s just no point to it._

madara goes dangerously still, and his eyes spin to life in a blaze of bloody crimson before adult tobirama has the chance to look away. tobirama watches as he crumples into the tsukuyomi, body going lax and soft around the edges as madara darts forward to catch him before his head can hit the ground and bounce against the rock. he cradles the body against his chest, sitting down properly and rearranging the two of them until adult tobirama is slumped over his lap, unconscious and insensate.

 _never,_ hisses madara, eyes glowing like bright hot coals and rage practically radiating off of him in waves. _not you too. ask me to kill you again, tobirama,_ he says to the out-cold man in his arms, _and i’ll dig up your edo tensei just so that you can never fucking die like he did._

they stay huddled like that as dawn breaks over what would once have been the hokage mountain, and adult tobirama does not wake.

“are soulmates…real?”

a moment of stolen peace in an onsen far outside of fire country. adult tobirama and madara have already done their courting dance, have already had sex – tobirama, only thirteen, had been too embarrassed to even listen – and now they simply lay into each other in the hot water, eyes closed, drowsing, peaceful smiles on their faces.

madara, soft and loving, cradling their newly-adopted child in his arms with a sort of glow about him that tobirama’s never seen on anyone before.

 _she’s ours now,_ he whispers, and adult tobirama, exhausted after a weeks-long mission where he barely escaped death at the hands of kinkaku and ginkaku, can barely smile in assent before he drops off to sleep next to his husband and daughter.

it’s nice, sometimes, having the memories. 

it’s sweet.

“why do you ask?”

madara, gone mad with power, screeches and laughs and shrieks as the world ends at his command. tobirama watches as his adult self is impaled over and over and over again on the gunbai, and then again as the dark man sloppily makes out with the remains.

adult tobirama, drowning in his own blood, crying out voicelessly for a man who isn’t there, for a man who couldn’t listen; he doesn’t see the face of his murderer. he doesn’t live to recognize spiky black hair and swirling red eyes and that particular brand of anger-grief-love that has always been so characteristically _madara._

it’s horrible, sometimes, having the memories. 

it hurts.

“…no reason,” he says, remembering the dark man and his cold, maniacal grin, so ferocious yet so loving. that insanity has always drawn tobirama like a moth to a flame; it’s familiar somehow, attractive somehow, and his worry and loathing churns in his gut when he can bring himself to think about it. 

he _hates_ the dark man. he’s died so many times at his hands, but—

—a part of him knows, deep down, that he can’t hate madara. he’s _never_ been able to hate madara, not since he knew the man that first time, and he’s loved him with a reckless single-mindedness ever since; even in the dreams where they die on each other’s swords, there is something deep in his soul that sings _right-right-right._ this is where you _belong,_ says the lifeblood, pouring out of his gut and throat and chest and head, spilled by kunai and gunbai and tantō alike. dead or alive, he is yours and you are his, and it is a crueler fate that would separate you, rather than allow you to perish in each other’s arms. 

he grows to become something of an insomniac, but even that doesn’t save him; the visions come night and day, sleeping or waking, it doesn’t matter.

they always come. 

_-chakra tearing, ripping at his clothing, at his skin; hot, long-fingered hands carving bruises into his ribs and thighs and throat and hips; madara inside him, fucking into him like there’s no tomorrow, like he needs him in the same way that he needs air or food or water-_

_-blood, screaming, the scent of sweat and piss hanging heavy in the air. tobirama sees his secret lover, sees izuna, and in a heartbeat he chooses. in a heartbeat, he dies. a sword, plunging through his abdomen, an outranged shout, a cry of anguish-_

_-love, soft and languid. in the early morning, madara is still asleep, and tobirama smiles at him, reveling in the knowledge that this man is **his,** all his; no one can take him from him. no one can make him give him up. he’s free to love his husband until the day he dies, and oh, does he intend to do so-_

“alright then, love. goodnight.”


	5. excerpt from hellfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lmao it's exactly what it sounds like. i didnt use this but i still think it's cute so here it is!! kagami + tobes fluff

Dawn is just peeking over the horizon with a gentle peachy-gray light when Kagami appears in the courtyard, standing sheepishly behind the gates and tucking himself into the heavy shadow of the stone wall that separates the two of them. Tobirama sighs internally; over the past few days, he’s grown very fond of the boy, and there’s no need for him to be so shy, but it would seem that the compound’s increasingly tense atmosphere has not spared him, and there’s a tension in his small form that makes Tobirama’s heart ache when he approaches.

He knows that his cold demeanor and constant scowl scare many children off. He knows that his infamous oddities and his legendary skills combined with his marble façade are intimidating, but – he’s always loved children, and whenever he frightens them by being himself, some small part of him withers and dies.

Kagami, though, is at least brave enough to get close to him and actually talk to him, a quality that the rest of his young Clanmates do not share, and that’s quickly made him one of Tobirama’s favorite people. Kids are refreshingly blunt and honest, and Tobirama finds their incessant curiosity immensely promising; one of the things he misses most about the Senju compound will be his small clutch of chubby-cheeked, bright-eyed ducklings. He’d treasured his little students when he’d had them, but now, like everything else about his old life, they’re gone. He really only has Kagami now, and he’s been holding back his bottled affection so as not to smother the boy, but he sees in that small face so much potential and promise. 

A shame, really, that he’ll never survive to know what he’ll be like as a man grown, to never meet his children or their children or even be able to teach him at all. It would be cruel to promise him an apprenticeship when he’s doomed to die tonight, so Tobirama holds his tongue, but the sparkle in Kagami’s eyes as he bounces closer makes something in his gut ache and want and twist in loneliness.

He’s always _loved_ kids, always understood them better than he understands most adults, and it pains him to know that he won’t ever be a sensei again. With his personality and his proclivities, he’d never dreamed of having children of his body, but he’d so treasured his young cousins and baby Clanmates, and having their growth ripped from his helpless, open hands burns at him like Madara had in his nightmares, blistering him from the inside out and making something ugly and dark bubble up in the burst wounds. 

“Tobirama-sama,” Kagami greets, still a little shyly. “Uh, I was wondering – was wondering if you’d show me some of your katas? You’re just as good as Izuna-occhan, apparently, and strong enough to be Madara-sama’s _wife,_ which must mean that you’re super strong, so…” 

He trails off, looking at the ground, and in his shock Tobirama doesn’t immediately respond.

“His husband,” he says numbly. “I’ll be his – his husband. I can’t…are you _sure_ you want me to teach you? I might not be able to for very long.” He’d love to, but he won’t be able to. Even if he survives his wedding, the chances that Madara will ever let him freely leave Mt. Shōja are slim, and it’s very likely that he’ll never really see the world at large ever again.

Kagami looks up at him with a determined fire in his young expression, and Tobirama can feel himself going gooey and soft at the center as he always does for children. 

“Of course!” he replies with a gap-toothed grin, brighter and more assured of himself now that he’s had a positive reception. “I wouldn’t want anyone else to do it! Uchiha are super good at Katon jutsus, so I figure that it’s really good if _someone_ around here knows at least _one_ strong Suiton jutsu, and my little sister accidentally set her hair on fire last night, so I know that I’ll use it. Even though I think my chakra nature is Fire, will you – will you teach me how to summon the water out of air like I’ve heard that you can do? Sensei?”

Despite himself, Tobirama is startled into a small smile. “Of course, Kagami-kun. Come here and watch. These are katas meant to strengthen your control over your body and the latent chakra within it; an important technique for developing the control required to manipulate the water vapor that exists in air.”

“Water vapor?”

“The water doesn’t just magically appear from nowhere. There are tiny particles of water already in the air – you’ll notice them more on muggy days – and it is these molecules that allow me to use powerful Suiton jutsus when not near a body of water.”

“Huh! I didn’t know that!”

Kagami is a quick study, and he’s already got a fine form by noon, when Izuna comes to interrupt them.


	6. hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for context: this is a discarded scene from day 5 of madatobi week, for which the prompts are modern w/ magic au and soulmates. madara is a daitengu and tobirama is a water dragon and surprise!!! theyre soulmates

Early morning moonlight pours in through the oversized windows of Tobirama’s bedroom, illuminating his fluffy hair in a blaze of white flame and casting silver-black shadows over the myriad of lovebites on his neck and shoulders and chest. Tangled up against him in a small hurricane of limbs and sheets and feathers and scales, it’s more than uncomfortably hot for Madara to be snuggled up against his boyfriend as well as tucked beneath the covers, but he can’t bring himself to care.

This is one of the few times he has to just drink in his Tobirama, and he’ll indulge as much as he damn well wants to.

Tobirama himself is still dead asleep, exhausted after a thorough fucking and worn down with the effort of muffling his screams of ecstasy. He looks like the very vision of beauty, curled up as he is in the embrace of Madara’s dark wings; the contrast of shiny blue-black feathers against scaly blue-white skin is something that never fails to entrance him, and now, with the pale light of the late hour shining down upon him, he almost seems to glow.

He traces long fingers down the firm sculpture of Tobirama’s abdominal muscles, scratching lightly at the blood-red gills carved into the spaces in between his too-prominent ribs just to delight in the way they flutter and gape; his boyfriend’s peculiar anatomy never ceases to amaze him.

Nothing about Tobirama ever ceases to amaze him.

They’ve been together for nearly a year, now, and although the novelty of him has worn off, there’s nothing that Madara can’t seem to find a way to love. The thinness of his lips, the slight curl of his messy pale hair, the sensitivity of his eyes, the way his skin will burn in even the dimmest of lights; all of that and more is precious to him, precious to him in a way he never could have anticipated anything being. It’s like Tobirama has taken long, slender fingers and plunged them into his chest to make a fist squeezing his heart – everything Madara is, everything he was, everything he ever will be – it’s all for him.

He supposes that’s kind of the point of soulmate Bonds, though, and it’s not like he can bring himself to be angry about that. In a similar vein to how everything about Tobirama is enchanting and delightful to him, there is no part of him that isn’t _maddening_ to no goddamn end, but… Madara wouldn’t change a single thing about him. He’s perfect just the way he is; their broken, flawed edges were made to fit together and scrape against each other and clash even as they sit snug like two pieces of a puzzle.

It’s possible, he thinks, looking down at his boyfriend with a stupid happy scowl on his stupid whipped face, that love has made him _soft._ He’s a daitengu, the heir to his Clan, a mighty lord of the skies and the flames; there is little that could ever dream of challenging him or upsetting his footing, and it just fucking figures that his Tobirama is among them.

He always has been an exceptional individual, after all, in nearly every way he can be. Madara is helpless in the inexhaustible pull of his gravity, completely defenseless, drawn to his soulmate as a moth is drawn to light – there’s some incandescent quality about Tobirama’s everything that makes him addicting where other people would be dull. There’s something in the rumble of his laughter and the tilt of his smile and the softness of affection in his eyes that makes Madara constantly crave _more-more-more_ , and he can’t do a single damn thing to stop himself.

Even if he could, he doubts that he would. He’d love to drown in the embrace of his boyfriend’s arms. If he was able to, he’d spend the rest of his centuries of life curled up right here, fitting perfectly up against Tobirama’s hard angles and rare shallow curves. His massive mane of hair means that he’s forbidden from being the little spoon unless he braids it or otherwise tames it so that it won’t end up in Tobirama’s mouth or scratching uncomfortably at his neck, but Madara would be lying if he said it wasn’t worth it; he himself has the body temperature of a furnace, and the cool, calm embrace of his Senju’s chakra is nothing less than heavenly when he begins to overheat.

He fusses with the blankets for a few minutes before he’s completely satisfied that their nest will do for now, and once he is, he drops off to sleep with the kind of rapid, soul-soothing ease that always comes to him when he spends the nights with Tobirama.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ive seen little spoon madara a lot and i dont DisAgree but i really think tobirama would rather die than let all that hair suffocate him in his sleep. its illegal for madara to be the little spoon unless he does something about that
> 
> this headcanon has been bothering me for one million years


	7. bloodsport

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sneak peek of another madatobi week entry lmao!! this one's for day 6, prompt 'feral'

An agonized scream shatters the dark silence of the prison, rousing Tobirama from his nap and forcing him back to the surface of his mind. The whispers of the bijuu are louder here, ever more prominent than they are when he lets his thoughts go, but he can’t give out; if he bends, it might possess him wholly.

If he breaks, it might get free.

Within the seals carved along the lines of his tattoos, the Two-Tails thrashes in rage, screeching and clawing and battering incessantly at the restraints that keep it trapped inside of him and yowling at such a pitch that Tobirama briefly thinks it shatters his eardrums with the horrible psychic noise.

 _Much, much easier_ , he thinks drowsily, sinking back down into his subconsciousness, ignoring the way it causes the Nibi to surge up and fill the gap he’d left behind. _Much, much easier to just… let it win…_

No, no, _no,_ he _can’t._ He has to stay strong, he has to fight it.

[ **is that what you think, little human?** ]

It can read his mind. It knows everything about him, all of his weaknesses, all of his thoughts; this is a losing battle, and as a genius he knows, but as a shinobi he does not wish to acknowledge it. He’s already lost so _much_ in the recent past – his freedom, his individuality, his virtue – and now he’s losing his mind, too. Now he loses the last shreds of his sanity to the ferocious ripping claws of the Two-Tails and its ancient, heady rage.

[ **you cant sense it, can you. you cant see beyond your cage.** ]

More clattering from past the prison bars. The sounds of fighting – steel screeching against steel, shouting, grunting, the hissing explosion of jutsus erupting into existence and the muffled yelling of Katon, Suiton, Doton, Mokuton.

—Mokuton?

Tobirama scrapes the bottom of his sealed chakra reserves and hurls out his awareness in a net, unfurling his chakra-sense and closing his eyes as lines of fire burst into his mind’s eye. His senses are dulled, here, along with everything else about him, and it’s taking all of his energy to reach beyond the nearly-watertight imprisonment seals that keep him all but powerless, but – there he is. _Hashirama._ He’s _here,_ he came to save him, he cares—Tobirama will be okay, because his big brother is here to rescue him, and there’s nothing Hashirama can’t do once he sets his mind to it.

 _Can he fix you?_ his traitorous thoughts whisper, filled with cold malice and the edge of resentment. _Can he separate you from the demon?_

_Can anything?_

[ **let me out, senju brat. let me out and we will see exactly what your anija can do to us. dont you want to know, to-bi-ra-ma? dont you want to be _strong_ like your brother, tall like your brother, _loved_ like your brother?**]

The Nibi digs its claws deep into his hindbrain, digging up the secret resentment he’s been harboring for Hashirama for years now and pouncing on the opportunity even as he tries to fight it off. He’s suppressed his jealousy and made peace with his situation, but he’s never forgotten it – he’s never forgotten how loathed he is, how unwanted he is, how inferior he is to Hashirama in every respect. He might not look it, but the elder Senju brother is a genius too, and he actually has the personality to carry that weight on his shoulders; he has a personality that could carry any weight at all, and he shines like the sun in the midst of a stormy sea of average shinobi.

He shines like the sun, and Tobirama is but a star, hundreds of millions of miles away, burning just as hot and bright but so cold and dim and distant, so _unremarkable_ when viewed in contrast to his ever-benevolent anija.

Madara – Madara has never seen him, only seen _through_ him. He’s never been acknowledged by his love, and it’s very likely that… that he never will be.

It’s a fate he can accept. Who is he in comparison to Hashirama, after all? He knows that Madara’s been in love with him for almost two decades, now, knows that he never stood a chance in the first place and especially not now that Izuna is comatose by Tobirama’s hand, but…

Would it be so bad to hope?

[ **give me your _power,_ senju,**] snarls the Two-Tails from within him, its voice reverberating in the base of his skull like a great glacial avalanche, [ **and i will give him to you. give me yourself and you will have madara.** ]

_Madara._

Tobirama’s loved him from a distance since long before the village was begun. He always has and he always will, and…

How could the Nibi _possibly_ guarantee him a relationship with the one person who will never in his right mind consider one? How?

Tobirama clenches white-knuckled fists around the bars of his seal-engraved cage and he _snarls,_ low and deep in his chest, an inhuman sound that echoes up from inside his gut and ricochets off the rock walls to increase in volume until it almost sounds like an ear-splitting roar.

He will not bend. He will not break.

He will not allow the Two-Tails to possess him, no matter what it thinks it can promise him.

[ **fine, then. i guess well just have to do this the hard way.** ]

Just as Hashirama’s energy signature approaches the door of the jail, he uses the very last drops of his energy to force it deep within the seal that connects them, and as his anija floods into the room of his cell, bringing a shower of light and manic energy with him, Tobirama finally, blissfully falls unconscious, the Nibi purring in victory and rising up through the seals to turn his tattoos blue-black and seize control of his body.


	8. heaven help me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for going so long w/o posting lads.......just got my vyvanse back so we can rock and roll!

Seashells and shards of glass cut and scrape at the soles of his soft, bare feet, but he has no care for anything beyond the rhythmic roar of the waves and the crashing of salt foam at his toes. Sandy footprints limned in red are not quite washed away by the evening tide, and it would be embarrassingly easy to track him and get the jump on him, but he doesn’t mind; if tonight is the night on which he was destined to die, so be it.

He’s useless anyway.

What is the point of a water god who cannot control the water? What is the purpose of a rain deity who cannot call the rains? It is only the ambiguity of his nature that saves him from the wrath of the Emperor – it is only his chakra suppressants, the very same potions that poison his system and weaken him so, that keeps him safe from the scorn, the shouting, the inevitable hate.

What would Madara do, Tobirama wonders, if he knew? If he knew that the Ryuujin was still alive, was close at hand, was working in the palace under his very nose?

He can’t imagine any outcome to that situation that doesn’t end with him permitting himself to be impaled on the massive curved blade of Madara’s gunbai, so instead he simply wonders about what would happen after. 

Will his immortality hold? Has he simply stopped aging altogether in lieu of it? Is he even _capable_ of dying? 

He supposes he’ll know soon enough, but the weak reassurance does nothing to sate the endless curiosity that is his nature, and he collapses in the wet sand with a curse. The grains sting at the cuts on his legs, but soon enough the salt water floods back, wiping away debris and closing all his wounds.

At least the ocean is still here for him.

Tobirama looks out over the horizon, tracking the inky blots of the clouds and the fading purple of the sunset. The first traces of stars are just barely visible, glittering weakly against the dark veil of the sky; beneath the beginning lights of foreign constellations, the sea roils, waves storming and crashing.

Grief, he knows, is just love with nowhere to go. It feels to him like the pressure in his abyssal trenches, like hundreds of millions of gallons of cold water crushing him into a strange, warped version of himself that is technically the same but somehow lesser. It feels like the icy depths of the ocean floor, miles from the sun, consumed by the blackness and oh-so-alone. It feels like a collar, heavy around his neck, attached to chains that jangle whenever he breathes, as some kind of gruesome reminder that he, at least, is not yet dead; he, at least, still lives. It’s so constant that sometimes he can forget it, sometimes he can tune it out, but before long, something will shift, however minutely, and it will come back to him, crashing-smashing-splashing all around with the force of a waterfall and the raging roar of blame.

Itama. Kawarama.

Hashirama.

All three of their losses were his fault in some way, the last made only worse by the fact that Hashirama is still alive; no, he’s perfectly alright, he just wants nothing to do with Tobirama anymore. He’s content with having no younger brothers – he’d rather lose his entire family, it would seem, than have to bear the burden of Tobirama as the last of his immediate blood.

Can he really blame him, though?

_What you’ve done – what you’ve done is betray my trust, time and time again, Tobirama. That’s the only thing you’ve proved to be good for. I thought differently. I **wanted** to think differently, Sage, I wanted to so **badly,** Tobirama, but you’ve ruined that with your hatefulness and your small-mindedness and your refusal to get out of your own head._

Angry words said in the heat of an argument, but no less true; no less heartbreaking.

Tobirama digs his fragile human toes into the wet, clumpy sand, relishing in the way it slips and falls against his feet in the familiar comfort of the seashore. He’ll always come here when he’s upset – it’s one of the only things in the world that can reliably calm him and center him, at least anymore.

_I don’t want you near the humans anymore, Tobirama, I **forbid** it. Your senseless hate for my creations has gone too far and you act as though you’re superior, when it is both of you who have been granted the miracle of life—_

He lays down in the surf, allowing the water to wash over him and wipe away his wrongs and his hurts and the broken shards of what used to be his soul. A too-familiar chakra signature creeps ever closer behind him, glowing bright in sunshower-ginseng-honeycomb, but Tobirama does not stir.

The human doesn’t take the hint, though, and crawls ever closer, hovering almost tentatively in his peripheral awareness; he cracks one eye open in annoyance, but the sight is the same. There’s a face hanging over him, moon-pale and narrow with high cheekbones, thin eyebrows, and dark slanted eyes – _kitsune-gao,_ it’s called. _Fox-faced._ Traditionally considered highly attractive in both men and women, and apparently attractive enough to draw the eye of Madara where not even Tobirama could. 

Tobirama glares up at Madara’s concubine and in a remarkable show of self-control, he _doesn’t_ murder the man on sight for having the gall to be intimate with what is so clearly _not his._ He’s managed to keep away suitors and brides and partners of all sorts over the years with his jealous overbearing nature and his relentless scent-marking of his Chosen human, but it wasn’t enough to scare off Kōji, that little salacious bastard – it’s possible that nothing will be.

He can’t lose control. He just _can’t._ He’s been assigned to guard his lord’s precious cock-warmer, and the weight of Madara’s disappointment is a burden he can’t bring himself to bear; no matter how much it disgusts him, no matter how much it burns at his heart, his human _loves_ this man, Wants him in all the intimate ways that he will never, _ever_ Want a creature like Tobirama, and for that reason alone, Kōji is protected.

“Rough night, my lord?” Kōji says from above him, having the balls to look genuinely concerned for Tobirama’s wellbeing.

“Uchiha,” Tobirama replies, cool as a sea cucumber and not relinquishing an inch of space to the disgustingly attractive parasite that has attached itself to _his_ human. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”


	9. prelude to a wip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is essentially a foreword to chapter seven. it doesn't have anything in it relating to tobirama, necessarily, at least not explicitly, but i thought it was good :-)

For as long as it has existed, cell block M22B has contained one prisoner, and one prisoner only.

This is for a very good, very _classified_ reason, one that only the Raikage and select ANBU members are privy to. Of course, the only person who hears it and could hypothetically live to tell the tale is the Lightning Shadow; for ANBU, guarding cell block M22B is as far away from a normal assignment as it’s possible to get.

For ANBU, guarding cell block M22B is a death sentence.

Nobody knows exactly what happens to the people who go up there and don’t come back. No one knows exactly how they just – vanish, without a trace. The only thing that’s certain is that it happens, and that the prisoner is the one responsible for it.

Like a Nara, it’s said to be cloaked in permanent shadows. Immortal, or close to it, like the Senju. Able to open up and destroy minds like the Yamanaka.

Rumors fly about what’s _really_ behind the thick, heavy shadows of the prison bars, impenetrable by light in its darkest corners, corners that the jailbird never bothers to leave. Some say that it’s a demon king, doomed to be caged forever after a deal gone wrong. Some say that it’s a kitsune with at least five tails, and that the Kumo-nin are keeping it locked up so that they can use and abuse its powers. Some say that it’s nothing more than a monster, a mindless beast that has to be imprisoned in the farthest reaches of the Skyspear Mountains and put on a permanent, 24/7 guard, just because of how damn _dangerous_ it is.

Han thinks that it’s just a person. Maybe a criminal, maybe not. Maybe a shinobi, maybe not.

(This theory has sparked another in the rumor mill: the idea that the Nidaime keeps an old flame of his bottled up in hell, to be used like a doll whenever he wishes to.

It’s – it’s not entirely _wrong,_ and it is in fact the closest the general population of ANBU has gotten as far as accurately guessing the contents of the cell goes, but it’s something that’s never spoken of, less A-sama find out; no one wants to be M22B’s replacement, after all.)

Whatever its holdings, cell block M22B exists far outside of the boundaries of Kumogakure, hidden away within the icy, glacial crevasses of the Skyspear mountain range and nearly impossible to get to. It’s considered the only impenetrable prison in the world, an utterly impregnable fort accessible only by the harshest and steepest of the mountain roads, roads littered with traps and black ice and hungry snow leopards-

“That’s _bullshit,_ ” says Han, not looking up from where he’s sharpening one of his kunai while seated on the floor. His breath steams in the air in a plume of silver-white: a frequent joke made by those poor souls forced to man cell block M22B is that they should also be guarding all of Rai no Kuni’s perishables, given that the atmosphere here is cold and thin enough to give a man frostbite within minutes should he be so foolish as to not dress warmly enough. “You know that the Beast-” – the colloquial nickname bequeathed to the lucky prisoner of M22B, uncreative and rather blithe as it is – “-is probably just some guy, right?”

Monkey and Viper immediately turn to him, dark eyes wide behind the porcelain of their masks. They were two of the more superstitious ANBU members, when they were still on duty, and they are firm believers in the pot that the Kumo ANBU have had going for as long as M22B has existed.

It is a betting circle of legendary scope, and rumor has it that one of the captains put his wife and kids on the line, and that another offered up his house. Lovely place – two beds, three baths, an immaculately manicured garden.

“ _Idiot_ ,” hisses Viper, sounding not unlike her codename, “do you _want_ to lose the bet? Be more _creative_ than that, gods. So _boring._ ‘What if it’s just some guy’- like _some guy_ warrants _this,_ ” she says, gesturing at the stone walls that ensconce them, two feet thick and layered with suppression seals that are, as far as Han knows, stolen Uzumaki techniques.

“Maybe,” he replies, “it’s a super special guy.”

Monkey barks out a hooting laugh, clutching at his chestplate with his gauntleted, gloved hands and stomping his foot on the ground.

“And _who –_ who the _fuck_ is _special_ enough to have _M22B_ all to themselves, and _why!_ Jaguar, you’re out of your goddamn mind, you know that?"


	10. unrequited

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which i use the word precious approximately 1000 times because madara has no vocabulary
> 
> this is super short but i like it anyway 😤

Madara perches on the windowsill, blocking the light of the full moon with his crouching figure and glaring through the darkness with Sharingan eyes, searching for the shadowed shape of – ah, there it is. Tobirama is snuggled into his futon, curled up into one of his snow leopards and snuffling softly in his sleep. Miracle of miracles, he hasn’t noticed Madara’s presence; it’s unwise for him to activate his Mangekyō within the radius of an unconscious sensor, but he can’t bring himself to shut down the dōjutsu.

He’s already had it on for more than enough time today, having used it to burn into memory the exact pitch and volume of the precious little gasps Tobirama makes when he’s fucked into oblivion, but there was no time afterwards to simply observe him lying comatose in his blankets. Madara isn’t welcome to stay once they’re finished with their relations, and as he gazes down at his partner, he can’t help but think that it’s a pity – Tobirama really is beautiful, even hidden as he is by the darkness of the night. He makes a habit of sleeping on his side, and his back is to Madara as he snores lightly; he takes the time to admire the slope of his mighty shoulders and the musculature of his back, memorizing everything he can with his Sharingan. The dampness of his hair, likely a result of the shower he’d probably taken after Madara’s initial departure; the dip where his neck meets his body, and the slope of his jugular; the blue-gray tone of his pale skin in the shadows; all of these are precious to him, and something pained and dying in the pit of his stomach puts up a great protest when he thinks about how he’ll never get the opportunity to just see these things casually, as Tobirama’s lover.

He’s not wanted like that, and he’s had months to come to grips with it, but the truth still burns. Tobirama only desires him for his cock and his hands and his mouth, and nothing more – he isn’t needed to be here as his boyfriend, to hold him as he sleeps and guard his precious self from the nightmares and kiss his forehead when he rises early for long-term missions.


	11. Chapter 11

Red, white, black, silver, red. The colors turn in a circle of flashing fins and glimmering scales, swirling in idle cyclic patterns beneath the surface of the water, vibrant and vivid against the bright green backdrop of Hashirama’s aquatic garden. The butterfly koi coil and wind around themselves, swimming around their wide, deep pond with a kind of languid serenity that Tobirama feels is the very essence of what Water chakra should strive to be. He copies their movements in his katas, flowing from one stance to the next with the slow surety he’s learned from his fish, dancing through his exercises. It’s imperative that he maintains his concentration as he goes. He first learned to water-walk when he was four, only a few years after mastering regular walking, and although it comes easier to him than almost anything else, it wouldn’t do to allow his iron-strong concentration to bend.

  
If he falls in the koi pond while training because Anija managed to sneak up on him _again_ , Tōka will never let him hear the end of it.

 

Tobirama pictures music, typhoon winds, the crash and splash of ocean waves as he goes, focusing so thoroughly on the rhythm of his body and his movements that even his omnipotent chakra-sense falls to the side. He can feel his heart pounding in tempo with the trickle of the waterfall that feeds the pond, can feel his blood rush through his veins, tempered by the heavy flood of Water chakra that resides within him, perfectly slow and perfectly fast all at once. Simultaneous, balanced, flawless.

 

Tobirama has been water-dancing since he was just a pup, and his endless hours of devotion to the art shine through his every fluid movement; he feels in the moment that he transcends the capabilities of the human body, that the swirling, winding, artful courtship display of the fish beneath his bare feet has become his own.

 

“Hiya, Tobes! Whatcha doing?” Hashirama chirps brightly, popping up from absolutely nowhere with a cherubic smile on his face, like he doesn’t know _exactly_ what the fuck he’s doing.

 

Tobirama isn’t so undisciplined as to screech and flail, but he does trip, and with a mighty splashing sound and a dazzling shower of water droplets pulled from the moisture in the air, he goes down.

  
The koi nibble at his toes as his back hits the grass-coated floor of the pond, and when he surges up for breath, wet hair falling into his eyes and clothes plastered to his sweaty body, Hashirama is laughing like the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad asshole he’s always been on the inside. He plays the innocent dumbass well enough, but _no,_ Tobirama knows the truth; his brother is a horrible sadist and a nasty little liar, and it is with great reluctance that he realizes once again that he’s been bested by Anija. They weren’t even training together this time. It was barely even training to begin with – Tobirama was relaxing with his fish, working out some of his energy, and like a bastard Hashirama chose to interrupt the lyrical flow of his chakra and body for a quick laugh and some damp robes.

  
Elder brothers, he reflects, climbing out of the pond with a vicious scowl on his dripping face, are a curse he and every other younger sibling is forced to bear, and he is a saint for withstanding Anija so patiently for so long.

 

“You,” he tells Hashirama, not bothering to speak over the bright, raucous sound of his laughter, “are a menace to society.”

 

“ _Ahaha_ – n _o_ , I’m not, you’re just mad because I caught you unawares again, and you’re supposed to be the strongest sensor in Fire Country!”

 

“I _am_ the strongest sensor in Fire Country,” Tobirama very calmly does not fume, “and _you_ are the worst person in Fire Country. You even beat out the Uchiha for that title, Anija, it’s very impressive.”

 

Hashirama, predictably, slumps down into another one of his glooms, laying sprawled on the garden ground before Tobirama and pouting upside-down at him. He has leaves in his hair, and he looks like a dumbass with his protruding lip and watery brown eyes and continuing inability to hold back his snorting giggles.

 

“You are so _mean,_ Tobira, who taught you to be so mean! I’ve been nothing but a good, kind, charitable anija to you for many years now—”

 

“I’m going to step on your balls. Watch out, here I come.”

 

“—and _still_ you persist in being so cruel and callous and cold when I am a generous, benevolent Clan Head, allowing you to sleep under my roof and eat my food and _ah mother of FUCK, Tobirama, that HURTS!”_

 

“I did warn you,” he says mildly. “Now, was there a point to you disturbing me or was it just for the fun of it?”

 

Hashirama scowls up at him, but allows him to haul him up.


	12. i litchrally don't know! i just dont!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEWWO FELLAS this is unbetad cause i didnt want to bother merry with this bullshit and i didnt know where else to put it. i like it but im probably never gonna expand on it so here it is lmao

When Tobirama is summoned from his afterlife for the second time, he decides he’s had _enough._

 

Hashirama and little Saru – well, _old_ Saru, for all that he’s still short – are with him too, along with a slender, blond-haired young man he doesn’t recognize.

 

…In front of them is Orochimaru, _again._ For fuck’s _sake,_ what doesn’t that snake understand about _kinjutsu_ being _forbidden?_

 

Hashirama looks unusually somber – he’s staring at the surroundings, and from that look he has on his face, his _Madara_ look, he recognizes this place.

 

“…What’s – what’s going on,” Anija says, managing to keep his voice from cracking in the presence of a young squad of shinobi who seem to _worship_ him. Tobirama would take the opportunity to make fun of him, but he looks genuinely distressed, and he himself is far too angered to bother curbing his temper enough to not insult his brother.

 

“ _Orochimaru_ is what’s going on,” Tobirama snaps in reply, and he’s _ignored_ as Saru takes the time to explain the obvious. Of _course_ they’d been taken out of the Shinigami and been brought back to life – how _else_ would they be _back to life?_

 

The blonde twink looks gravely concerned to hear this and his face scrunches up in dismay.

 

“No _way,_ ” he murmurs, “…you figured out how to undo that sealing jutsu? _How,_ mister Orochimaru?”

 

“You underestimated me, _Minato,_ ” purrs the snake, narrowing their golden eyes. Orochimaru looks almost unbearably smug – no, wait, _definitely_ unbearably smug – as they talk about how they’d put their efforts into grave-robbing. The three ninja they’ve brought along with them are visibly annoyed by the exposition, and the Uchiha boy is vibrating dangerously, unable to physically contain the frustration stirring his chakra into turmoil.

 

“Oh _no,_ ” moans Minato before turning to Hashirama and widening his big blue eyes in a pout. Whatever cute effect he’d been hoping to have is somewhat undermined by the dark gray of his sclera, but he continues _talking,_ apparently unaware of how he is a grown man acting like – like _Hashirama._

 

“Lord First, it appears… that we’ve been recalled into the land of the living.”

 

 _Well_ , thinks Tobirama. Indeed, and it’s not as this though has already been explicitly stated at least seven times in the past _two minutes._ He can’t really be annoyed, though – sometimes Hashirama really _does_ need to be told obvious things over and over and over again, and he generously decides to give Minato the benefit of the doubt and assume that the man is just trying to make sure that Anija is aware of the gravity of the situation.

 

It fails. Hashirama twists himself up like a bamboo stalk in a typhoon and instead of just walking over and actually _talking_ to Minato, he presses himself up against Tobirama’s side as he shrieks, “ _Hm?!_ And who the hell are _you!_ How do you know my _name!_ ”

 

Tobirama closes his eyes, tilts back his head, and takes in several deep breaths. The Edo Tensei has always been a bad idea – reanimating the dead has the potential to cause unknown chaos for the living, and he’d only made the technique in the first place because he was a stupid, depressed teenager exhausted by war and grief, and he never really outgrew… _any_ of those traits, looking back – but perhaps he’s hated it for all the wrong reasons. It had been very useful during the war, though. Horrible as it was, it was an extremely effective intimidation tactic, and its liberal use was the only thing that allowed Tobirama to live so long.

 

It’s almost certainly inappropriate to think, but Tobirama’s biggest issue with the damn jutsu now is that he _cannot escape his brother._ He missed Hashirama so much when he’d died, had been so _lonely_ once he became Hokage – a terrible decision for everyone involved, and Tobirama thinks that if he could go back in time and tell his past self _something_ other than The Obvious _,_ it would be to make sure he never takes the hat. And to not kill Izuna or whatever, but he would definitely make sure he didn’t delude himself into thinking he could just _be the Hokage._

 

Now, Hashirama has seemed to have both forgotten his own fame and lost the ability to read, because Minato has to turn around, actually _point_ at the lettering on his back, and explain how he’s the Yondaime, and that’s interesting-

 

“Ho, the _Fourth?_ ” yells Hashirama, ever unaware of what volumes should be restricted to the outdoors. “Oh, nice, _nice!_ The village is stable, then? Has been for a while, it sounds like! Ooh, Sarutobi, you’re so _old_ and wrinkly! Wow, like seriously, _ancient!_ I’d forgotten since our last battle!”

 

Hiruzen mutters something uncomplimentary under his breath about Hashirama’s mental capacity, but he’s ignored so that their esteemed Shodaime can leap across the room and fling himself into the poor Yondaime’s face. Minato looks rather _shocked_ to see him acting in such a way, which confirms Tobirama’s fear that history remembered Hashirama’s power and prowess in battle while conveniently forgetting everything about the man himself.

 

“I, uh, I don’t actually _know_ that, sir,” Minato mutters, scratching at the back of his head, “I died and was sealed away much sooner than the Sandaime…”

 

“Oh, huh, _really?!_ In a different incident than when I was sealed away with Tobes and Sarutobi?!”

 

Hashirama, Tobirama thinks, must have inherited all of the facial expressions their parents possessed, because he’s managing somehow to look both shocked and dismayed and noble all at the _same time._ In retaliation, Tobirama keeps his scowl on, firmly doubling down on the stoicism that apparently skipped Hashirama over, and predictably, this is not noticed by anyone.

 

“Yes, sir…a completely separate incident…”

 

Minato looks rather disillusioned now that he’s actually _spoken_ with the legendary God of Shinobi, and Tobirama can’t quite keep himself from frowning at him in solidarity. The Yondaime seems to take this as a threat, and he blanches somehow despite not possessing blood and struggles to keep up with Anija’s vivacity.

 

“So, who’s the _Fifth_ Hokage?!”

 

“Your granddaughter, Princess Tsunade.”

 

Oh, holy _shit._ Tobirama manfully suppresses the maniacal giggle that bubbles up in his chest at the thought of _Tsuna_ as _Hokage_ , and from Hashirama’s fit of gloom, he seems to be imagining something similar.

 

“Tsuna, eh…” he mumbles. Apparently, the news that his beloved granddaughter would one day become the leader of the entire village is what it finally takes to make him feel bad about infecting her with all of his horrible habits; Tobirama really can’t say it’s all that surprising, not when even _Mito_ and her Nine-Tails aura couldn’t keep her errant husband from losing to his granddaughter at poker. She was five, if he recalls correctly, and Hashirama went to bed that night three thousand ryō poorer than he had been.

 

“Is…is the village okay?”

 

“Uh, yes sir…why wouldn’t it be? Is there something to be worried about?”

 

Minato looks like he’s going into shock when Hashirama straightens up to his full height again and laughs abruptly and _loudly_ in his face.

 

“Well, she was my first grandbaby, so I spoiled her _rotten!_ She even picked up my gambling bug in the end, gwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

 

“The Edo Tensei,” Tobirama interrupts, his Hashirama-resistance weakened after decades spent not using it, “you used it again, eh? So _casually…_ ” Hashirama is _still laughing._ Sarutobi seems like he might be on the brink of a stroke, or perhaps a heart attack, given the way he’s clutching at his chest with his withered old hands. Orochimaru gives him a smug smirk that Tobirama can _feel,_ and the sensation of cold oil running down his spine almost makes him twitch.

 

“It’s not really _that_ complex of a jutsu,” they say, flipping their hair over their shoulders like an absolute _bastard,_ and Tobirama is going to _wring their neck._ “You really shouldn’t have conceived of it, though…”

 

“Yes, yes, we _know,_ get to the _point._ ”

 

“Ahh, _Nidaime,_ many of your policies and the jutsu you developed ended up causing _many_ problems later on down the line, even _currently…_ ”

 

…Well, that’s certainly _disappointing,_ but not really surprising. Tobirama hated that _fucking_ job and only fought so hard to stay alive because there was no one else who could do it. He failed anyway, of course, and the blood loss at the end must have made him delusional, because he picked _Saru_ as his successor instead of Koharu, who was clearly the smartest and most competent of his students. What had he been _thinking?_ Oh, yes, something about how she wouldn’t be accepted as a woman, which wasn’t her fault, but. Still, she would have been strong enough to handle the pressure, and that bad decision is on him. _Yikes_.

 

“Are you planning to attack Konoha again,” is what he says instead of ‘Hiruzen your entire career was a mistake and Koharu not only deserved the hat more than you did but would have done a better job as Hokage’, even though that’s pretty much the only thing he’s thinking.

 

Orochimaru goes into detail about some of the many issues he’d caused, and the Uchiha boy – Sasuke – demands that Saru explain how and why he’d apparently _ordered the Clan to be massacred_ , something that Tobirama himself was guilty of abetting… and then he completely loses track after that, because—

 

“Uchiha Madara is planning to revive the Ten-Tails and use its power to cast an Infinite Tsukuyomi on the moon.”

 

Of fucking _course_. Tobirama doesn’t know why he’s surprised.

 

Well. There _may_ be some small, twisted part of him that still loves Madara, despite everything that happened between them and the incredible way their not-relationship had crashed and burned and fallen apart, nearly taking Konohagakure with it in the fallout, but…

 

No. _No._ It’s small and twisted and it will stay firmly repressed under the depressingly shallow sea of Tobirama’s common sense. They’re not engaged anymore – it’s very likely that they never really were – and they’re most certainly not getting _married._

 

“ _What!”_ gasps Hashirama, dramatic as ever, like his best friend’s insanity hadn’t been obvious since well before they both died. “I – _no,_ say it isn’t so!”

 

The Yondaime wheezes out an incredulous laugh, stare hopping frantically from Orochimaru to Hashirama to Orochimaru’s merry band of overgrown genin and then back to Hashirama again, and Tobirama has had _enough._

 

He slips outside of the Naka Shrine while Hashirama is still wailing in his distress, spots the Hokage Mountain and the unbelievably unflattering stone rendition of himself that it’s been home to for some decades now, and with a single mighty Doton he replaces his likeness with something that his anija has had coming for far too long.

 

Not long after, Hashirama and the others emerge from the shrine, dressed and prepared for battle.

 

“Tobirama!” Anija yells. “What are you – _Tobirama what is that!”_

 

“Do you like it?” Tobirama replies, feeling smug and victorious and so, so brilliant. He gestures grandly at the kanji he’d just carved into the mountainside, the characters fifty feet tall and visible from even this distance.

 

 _I told you so,_ it reads, and so he had.

Tobirama has been waiting to pull a stunt like this since they were both children.

 

“I thought,” Hashirama fumes, clearly remembering the many arguments where Tobirama had claimed his cultured superiority to be above his anija’s everything else, “you were too _classy_ to tell me that, otouto.”

 

“I am,” he responds with far more cheer than could be considered appropriate for the situation, “so I carved it into the Hokage Mountain.”


	13. selkie au

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> exactly what it sounds like lmao

Snow falls in flurries of soft white crystals, drifting down from the sky to melt against overheated bare flesh and scraping, sparking steel and the blasting burn of Izuna’s flamethrower Katon jutsus. Tobirama’s snarl is bestial and ferocious as he meets him swing for swing, their swords clashing to the wartime music of metallic shrieking, of people shouting, of explosions and eruptions and Hashirama’s wails about _peace!_ and Madara’s responding wails about _fuck off Hashirama._

Tobirama shunshins a few yards away, hands flickering through a long sequence of signs before he pulls icy water right out of the sky to send a Suiryuu roaring towards Izuna. To his credit, it nearly hits, but he burns it away with a flash of Raiton and hurls a handful of kunai in Senju’s direction.

One of them – and this is very, _very_ important – grazes the white fuzzy mass of Tobirama’s collar, shearing off a few hairs and nearly nicking the side of his neck.

That collar, when he’d first shown up with it in the last battle, had been the talk of the Uchiha compound; where Hashirama found such a beautiful luxury of such a high quality remains a frustrating mystery. Where he was able to spare the money to spoil his little brother is as yet unknown. Izuna had returned to his room to discover Madara sitting there looking sheepish, offering up one of the newer chicks from the aviary and seemingly guilty that he couldn’t afford the resources to spare to get Izuna a similarly ostentatious birthday present.

It would make sense that Tobirama treasures the thing, but when Izuna’s kunai flies too close, he straight-up _panics,_ red eyes stretching wide and bringing his sword up in a defensive position. His shoulders fly up to somewhere around his ears, framing his skinny pale face in a glorious mane of white fur. The expression he wears is one of a bone-deep, instinctual fear; Izuna is suddenly certain that the white demon of the Senju is gone, replaced with a feral Tobirama who doesn’t know anything beyond a raging protective instinct for, of all things, his fucking _collar._

“Stupid spoiled Senju!” Izuna jeers, twirling his sword one-handed and forming a series of signs with the other, gathering his Fire chakra in his stomach in preparation for another Grand Fireball. “Leave your damned coat alone, will you, and fight me like a _man!_ If you care that much about that pretty collar, maybe I should just _take_ it and see how you like that!” 

“ _Never,”_ Tobirama growls, his voice going an octave deeper than normal and coming out sharp and percussive, like the bark of a hound, or perhaps a seal. “Leave me alone, Uchiha demon, and you might escape with your life, even with that insult.” 

“Aw, did I trim poor Tobi’s manhood? Get a fucking grip, you albino freak, it’s just an animal pelt.”

It is very clearly not just an animal pelt, and the incandescent _fury_ on Tobirama’s face when he says that unwittingly creates for him a new objective: take the collar, unharmed if possible.

If Tobirama’s reactions are at all indicative of the deep, unknowable bond he apparently shares with this particular article of clothing, it’ll be as good as a human hostage. Better, even. Senju wouldn’t care as much about another person. He’s emotionally incapable of it.

A rabid freak is most dangerous when cornered, though, and as Izuna fights Tobirama back into a tree, he gets more and more risky with his jutsus, recklessly throwing chakra around in a desperate attempt to get him to fuck off.

It fails.

Izuna knocks Tobirama in the head with the flat of his blade, runs his sword through his stomach, and while he’s distracted with the wound in his gut, he rips the fur collar up, off, and away from his shoulders, flinging it across his own and then running for his dear life when Senju actually _roars_ in response.

“Retreat!” he yells, waving his arms and bloody sword around like a maniac as he gathers his Clansmen. “Retreat!”

“Izuna, what-!” Madara says, but he doesn’t get much further than that, because Hashirama has just noticed his little brother, slumped against a tree, bleeding and hunched and collarless. The horrible noise he makes as he runs, the true terror in his body as he sprints towards Tobirama and then slides right up to him, pressing mint-green hands against his stomach and shouting something frantically at his Clan almost makes Izuna feel guilty.

Almost.

It would turn out that Hashirama’s also calling for a retreat, and that day the Uchiha escape the battle with only one casualty: Izuna’s cousin Daihiko.

They have a cremation ceremony, and then the battle is well and truly over.

“So,” Madara growls that evening after they’re all bandaged up and washed and fed, “what the hell was _that_ about? Did the little Senju get angry when you stole his pelt?”

Izuna drags his fingers through the voluminous collar, luxuriating in the heavenly silken softness of it and leaning back with closed eyes. “Something like that, yeah. He was – really upset, Mads, when I took it. It’s gotta mean a lot to him.” A pause. “If he lives, he might bargain for it back.”

Madara snorts in derision, accidentally inhaling half his sake in the process. Once he’s finished with his wheezing fit and mostly recovered from breathing in alcohol, he turns to Izuna with a dubious glare on his red face, dark eyes narrowed and suspicious. “Don’t be stupid, otouto. You stealing Tobirama’s fucking collar isn’t going to be the thing that makes him suddenly amenable to peace. I mean, you can keep it if you want to, but don’t try to do anything dumb with it, yeah? I know that doing dumb things is your specialty-”

“Rude! That was _rude,_ Aniki, you have to apologize!”

“-but this war has been going on so long that we really can’t risk much of anything unless we want to lose ground, and Hashirama is going to be angry enough that you stabbed his brother. That’s not really the kind of wound that a person recovers from, Izu, no matter how good of a healer he is.”

Izuna pauses. The only thing he’d been thinking about when he’d run Tobirama through with his sword was the man’s odd reaction to having his collar stolen – he hadn’t really been considering actually _killing_ him.

“…Isn’t that a good thing? Madara, you know how dangerous Tobirama is…”

“What would happen,” Madara says with a sigh, rubbing at his temples, “if you died instead? If Tobirama had stabbed you, instead of the other way around?”

Izuna considers this. “I’d be dead?”

“And what would that mean for me?”

“You’d be angry?”

“No, you idiot,” he hisses, leaning forward to clap a hand around Izuna’s nape and press their foreheads together so that he’s forced to look into his brother’s eyes. “I’d be _heartbroken._ You’re my last brother, Izu, and I could never forgive anyone or anything that would take you away. I’d _kill_ Tobirama for that, you know. I’d cut his fucking head off and I wouldn’t regret it, and it wouldn’t even matter, because no amount of revenge would heal that sore, you understand? No amount of time would help me recover. If it’s at all possible at that point for me to form the village with Hashirama, then great, but it wouldn’t mean a damn thing if you weren’t there to share the peace with me, you giant _dumbass_.”

Izuna thinks about that for a moment, solemn and still and silent, and then he realizes, and his blood turns to ice. He jerks back from his brother in a fit of horror.

“Aniki. _Aniki,_ Hashirama-”

“Hashirama has never fought this war with his full power, Izuna. He never has. He’s done just enough to hold us back, just enough for him to be barely in the lead, but if he were to unleash the full extent of his ability? If he were to turn every plant and root and wooden thing against us? If he were _mad_ with grief, brother, because _that’s_ what will happen if Tobirama dies? We wouldn’t stand a goddamn _chance._ ”

Izuna sits back, head spinning with the sudden weight of the doom he’d brought upon his Clan by thinking before stabbing. “You really think that’s going to happen, Aniki?”

“I can’t guarantee that it won’t,” Madara replies, sounding so old and exhausted and _sad_ that Izuna nearly reaches over to hug him.

“I – what do we do?”

“We wait,” he says, turning around so that his massive mane of hair obscures the top half of his body and wandering back around to his desk, where several maps and figures are laid out, representing the current tides of the war. “We wait, and we pray to every deity we know that Senju Tobirama survives that blow.”

On his way out of the office, he’s stopped by Madara’s call.

“Oh, and Izuna?”

“Yes, Aniki?”

“Bring me that pelt. I want to know what’s so damn special about it.”


	14. prelude to serendipity

The pain is intense in a way that’s unlike anything she’s ever felt before. It crests through her in sharp waves of agony, concentrated around her belly and her hips, pulling screams from her mouth before she knows what’s happening and slicking her face with tears and sweat.

 

“Make it _stop,”_ Tsukike wails, reaching out with claw-like hands for Sakuma and where he sits not even a foot away from her, hushing her soothingly. “Make it – _AH!_ – make it stop!”

 

“Shh, snowflake,” the other omega tells her, smoothing his fingers over her hair and allowing his scent, sweet and milky, to wash over her. “It will all be over soon, and then our baby will be here! Won’t that be exciting, writing to Butsuma and telling him about his new child?”

 

“I don’t want Butsuma to know,” she sobs, knotting her fists in the blood-stained blankets of her sickbed. “I don’t – I don’t want him to hurt my baby, I don’t want him near me, I don’t want him, I don’t—”

 

“The baby’s crowning,” the medic-nin says from in between her legs, interrupting her frantic shouting. “Just a little longer, Lady Senju, and you’ll be ready to push.”

 

“I’m ready to push _now,”_ she snarls, locking the muscles in her legs and enduring another flush of excruciating hurt. “I think I know when I’ll be ready to deliver this _fucking_ baby, you Senju bastard – _ah, mother of_ —”

 

Sakuma, darling man that he is, allows her to hang onto his hands with a grip so tight that she can hear the bones in his fingers grinding together. Inside her, the pull intensifies, like there’s an invisible fist with fingers wrapped tight around her internal organs, trying to tug them all out. With the next contraction comes the irrepressible urge to clench down and _push,_ and despite the medic-nin’s warning, Tsukike is exhausted and in pain and she’s been in labor for nearly _three days_ already, and her pup is ready to come and greet the world.

 

She pushes, howling, and the sensation of ripping, tearing, tightening is so intense that it takes her a moment to realize that the little bundle of weight that’s been putting pressure on her bladder for the past five months is abruptly gone, that the contractions are weakening, that there’s a thin, reedy wailing in the air, the cries of an infant, _her_ infant, her precious baby, no matter that it may have been conceived of Butsuma’s seed.

 

“Congratulations, Lady Senju,” says the medic-nin stiffly, and when she looks, she’s only a little embarrassed to realize that in her thrashing she kicked him in the face, breaking his nose. “It’s a demon.”

 

“ _What,”_ Tsukike croaks, not processing the words, not hearing what Sakuma starts hissing at the medic-nin with venom in his voice. “Where’s – where’s my baby, Toji?”

 

She hauls herself up with more effort than sitting up should take, and then she sees it, small and perfect, held out in Toji’s arms like it disgusts him. A boy, she realizes, and an omega, judging by the mixed appearance of his sex, so tiny and pale but so perfectly formed…

 

She reaches out, wonder splitting the noises of her coos of awe, but suddenly the medic snatches her son away and stands, prepared to leave.

 

“Toji!” Sakuma snarls, rising to meet him, “give him back!”

 

“You know as well as I do what the procedure is for malformed pups, Lord Senju. It's an albino, and an omega, and there is no place for it among the land of the living,” Toji says clinically, emotionless, and seconds pass before what he’s saying actually registers in Tsukike’s mind, and she’s filled with a fear so deep and so all-consuming that there is no metric by which she can measure it. There is no comparison to be made, because she’s never felt anything so strongly before, not even hate, not even for her alpha.

 

Toji is – he’s going to _take her baby,_ he’s going to steal away Tsukike’s _child,_ her precious pup, and he’s going to bury him alive with a cruel, crushing Doton, like breaking open the earth and murdering her son will erase all evidence of his existence, like his existence needs erasing in the first place.

 

Suddenly, rapidly, the terror is eclipsed by a red flood of rage so potent that it blurs her vision and overtakes her mind and body, and although she is still weak from childbirth, although she is no front-line warrior, although she is just an omega, just a mother, when she regains focus minutes later, her baby is back, back and safe, sticky and pink and red but that’s normal, isn’t it? His entrance into the world was really, incredibly painful, and she’s not surprised that there’s blood smeared over his perfect, tiny face.

 

“Tsukike,” Sakuma whispers, horrified, and it’s only then that she notices the corpse she stands over, the entrails leaking crimson all over her nice wooden floors, the glassy, dead-eyed stare of Toji the medic, the signature spray of blood that paints her precious pup’s little body.

 

“Tsukike, what did you _do?”_

 

“His name is Tobirama,” she tells her mate softly, bouncing the baby in her arms and unable to repress a smile when he giggles, high and sweet. “’The space between two doors.’ Isn’t it pretty? Just like him!”

 

“Tsukike,” Sakuma repeats, brow creasing, “do you – do you realize…?”

 

She presses the babe’s – Tobirama’s – small, soft head against her chest, pleased when he obligingly burbles and leans down against her. He’s safe. He’s safe, he’s fine, and that’s what matters.


	15. MITO

Mito brings her hand up to cradle Kimiko's small, soft head, pressing a gentle kiss to her red tufts of hair and tapping her fingers lightly against the velvety skin at the base of her neck. Kimiko whimpers, burying her face in her mother’s chest, chubby fists clenching on the silk of her kimono and whiskered cheeks damp with tears.

Hashirama doesn’t notice, still radiating such an intense killing intent that it’s making their daughter _cry,_ standing solemn and still like Mito isn’t there, watching. Like Mito isn’t _always_ there, watching, knowing what things he does that he thinks she doesn’t and suppressing the force of her rage and her bijuu behind a graceful silent smile that goes overlooked more often than not, simply because it’s expected for her to always have it plastered on.

She has to force back the Kyuubi again. It always tries to take advantage of her anger, and damn if she will let it; her baby girl is upset enough as it is, and if she starts screaming, Mito isn’t entirely sure that she won’t just join her. It’s been so _long_ since she was allowed to feel ugly, dark emotions, so long since she was allowed to be upset, so long since she could be a human without also being a monster, since that’s what she becomes in the eye of the public, when she’s angry.

A monster.

They act like she doesn’t know it, but she does. The knowledge that they _fear_ her and what destruction she could bring down upon them makes something vicious coil in the pit of her gut, urging her to just do it already and show those poor, stupid souls exactly what they’ve been missing thanks to her strength and devotion to her duty as a jinchuuriki. Many times, she’s had to hand Kimiko to the care of the servants, since the Nine-Tails rises to the surface, and along with it, the potential to endanger her baby.

Hashirama is still fucking silent. Mito chooses to take it as the minor miracle it is; usually, he fills their home with chatter about his job, his Madara, his every whim, Madara, his garden, Madara, the weather, and Madara again.

Who will he talk about now that Madara is gone, killed by his own hand at the Valley of the End? Mito is no fool. She can tell that her husband has only had eyes for another, but she does wonder if he, in turn, was aware of Madara’s feelings. The relationship he had with Tobirama was covert while it lasted, short and explosive and full of emotion, and Hashirama never noticed; he never seemed to be aware of the way his love’s eyes were always drifting towards his little brother, drawn to Tobirama like a compass to the north.


	16. excerpt from a wip

Strong arms slide around her waist, and Hashirama droops over her in another one of his glooms, hair spilling over their shoulders in a fall of brown against red and hot breath gusting against the side of Mito’s neck. Thankfully, he’s not so far gone as to forget that she’s been crafting protection seals for the village for the better part of a month now, and his distress does not disturb her inkstone or her brushstrokes or her scroll.

“Thoughtful man,” she murmurs to him. “What is it now, my silly husband? Have Tobirama and Madara been at it again?” 

“ _Yes,”_ Hashirama moans, snuggling into her back and pressing his face into the crook of her neck and shoulder, voice muffled by the warmth of her skin and the silk of her kimono. “They just _won’t stop,_ and not even being annoyed with me is enough to give them common ground anymore! They’re always arguing some way or another, even when they’re not speaking to each other, even when they’re not even in the same _room,_ and frankly I have no idea _how_ they manage to do it, but it has to _stop,_ Mito! They’re my precious people and the highest-level administrators in the village and they’re attracting the attention of everyone, and I have half a mind to arrest them for disturbing the peace!”

“Well,” she muses, eyes never leaving the flowing lines of seal-script that unfurl on the paper before her, “if anyone could make hostile interpersonal relationships into a valid reason for incarceration, it would be the two of them.” 

“That’s – not helpful, Mito. You do realize how that’s not helpful, right? I just had to leave, I’d had too much already today, and even now I bet they’re just being needlessly cruel to each other and scaring off all the civilians and restarting the wars through sheer, unadulterated loathing!”

She thinks of the way Madara’s Sharingan eyes are always tracking Tobirama, thinks of the way Tobirama always knows where Madara is within his range, thinks of the way they’re drawn to hate each other like the opposite poles of a magnet, and she smiles to herself, setting down her brush and patting her ridiculous spouse on one broad shoulder soothingly.

“Don’t worry, Hashirama,” Mito tells him, careful to keep the laughter out of her voice. “I’m sure there’s more to their relationship than meets the eye.”


	17. from the future, serendipity

Madara finds him in the living room, dancing through his katas with Natsuki as his audience. She seems to find her mother’s odd, fluid movements enchanting, and she burbles and giggles as Tobirama shifts from one form to another, his muscles straining. It’s been nearly five months since he was able to get away with exercise more strenuous than the very basics, and he’s lost a lot of muscle tone that he needs to get back before he can return to the field and expect to perform with the same general level of competency.

 

“Senju,” Madara snaps, and that’s his what-the-fuck-are-you-doing-you-moron voice, “what the fuck are you _doing,_ you moron?”

 

Tobirama is facing away from him, so he doesn’t bother with an eyeroll, but he makes a face at Natsuki as he switches to his next kata, making her laugh and wriggle around delightedly.

 

“Senju! Don’t ignore me!”

 

“I’m doing katas, _obviously._ Honestly, what else does it look like? I promise I’m not teaching Natsuki how to cuss at Izuna. That would be beneath me.”

 

“Fubuh,” Natsuki babbles. Tobirama’s next pose brings him back around to where he can see his mate, and Madara has his hands propped up on his hips disapprovingly, looking rather like Mito when she catches Hashirama doing something stupid that he should know he’s not supposed to do.

 

“Besides, she’s having trouble with her ‘k’ sounds. The most I’ve been able to get out of her was ‘dumb’ and even that required some suspension of disbelief.”

 

“Duh!” she chirps, and Tobirama briefly twists around so he can favor her with a bright, encouraging smile.

 

“That’s right, lightning-bug. Say _dumb._ Tell Daddy that your uncle Izuna is dumb.”

 

“Duh! Duh!”

 

“Tobirama,” growls Madara, and suddenly they’re chest-to-chest, and he can feel the heat radiating off of his alpha like a furnace on a cold night. “You’re not _cleared_ for katas yet. It’s been three weeks. You should still be lying in bed, and—”

 

“Duh!”

 

“—why are you teaching your daughter how to swear at my brother?”

 

“Oh, she’s _my_ daughter now? I thought she was _your_ daughter, back when she managed a little bit of scooting around on her stomach.”

 

“She’s my daughter when she does good, magnificent things like scooting around on her stomach, even if I have to help her a little,” Madara says loftily, “and she’s _your_ daughter when she does _bad_ things like _swearing,_ Tobirama, she’s not even a month old! Why are you even trying?”

 

“Because Izuna is a shithead and he deserves to be sworn at by a baby.”

 

“ _Duh!”_

 

“Natsuki, stop that. Tobirama, you stop that too.”

 

“No,” he says at the same time as Natsuki starts crying. They both turn around to look at her, but Madara’s the one to go get her, picking her up and cradling her against his broad chest and giving Tobirama a truly nasty glare.

 

“See?” Tobirama says. “She likes bad words.”

 

“You’re a horrible influence. I should divorce you and take her far away from you so you can’t pervert her little baby vocabulary with your demented nonsense.”


	18. trashed snippet that i liked anyway

_The moon is dyed a bloody red that shines crimson over the battlefield as Madara sends jutsu after jutsu exploding out into the Allied shinobi army. Pathetic, really – all of the strongest ninja in the world, many of the strongest ninja who are no longer of this world, and none of them could dream of stopping him. Not even the five Kage, powerful and proud and dignified, could put a dent in his defenses; there is little that could, and unless Hashirama shows up out of nowhere, Madara has nothing to fear._

_So of course, that’s exactly what happens._

_“Madara!” Hashirama yells over the clamor of combat, flanked by the three other deceased Hokage and a bunch of other nin he doesn’t recognize, “what are you **doing,** Madara! This madness, you – you have to stop!”_

_“Come and make me,” Madara sneers in response, but suddenly the pale man to Hashirama’s left flickers out of existence in a burst of yellow light to reappear not three feet in front of him. He’s just close enough to recognize strangely familiar eyes, an oddly intense ruby color that reflects the Sharingan pattern of the moon almost perfectly when the man’s hands twist into an ox seal, and suddenly the earth is falling, falling, falling away from beneath him, and there are rocks coming out of the sky, and an oppressive crushing weight on his chest that he just can’t get rid of—_

 

“Madara,” snaps Shima, and it takes him a moment to wake up and realize that the falling sensation was him rolling out of bed and that the weight is just his daemon, sitting on his back like she is not atrociously large and far too big to do so. “Madara, come on. Hashirama’s in the shower and you have five minutes to bully him out of it if you want to make it to orientation on time.”

 

“What if,” he says mutinously, because he doesn’t appreciate being knocked out of his very warm, comfortable blanket nest to be crushed to death by an almost-mature tigress, even if she is the manifestation of his soul, “I _don’t_ want to make it to orientation on time. Then can I go back to sleep?”

 

“No,” Shima says, because she’s a horrible daemon and a backstabbing betrayer and a terrible partner in every way. “You’re one of the Heads this year, dumbass, so you _have_ to go, and it would be nice if the freshmen didn’t first meet you with you smelling and looking like you just emerged from the filthiest depths of hell.”

 

She steps off his back, letting him breathe again, but not without unsheathing her claws into the meat of his ass, because she’s the literal worst. “There. I even got off of you.”

 

“How gracious of you,” Madara snaps, stumbling to his feet and glaring down at her once he’s standing and taller than her. Sure enough, the dorm bathroom door is closed and there’s light and steam spilling out from the crack underneath, not to mention the hideous sound of Hashirama singing to himself like he’s a princess in a Disney movie.

 

Shima narrows her eyes at the closed door, and immediately he knows what she’s thinking.

 

“You’re forgiven,” he tells her, “if you help me with this.”

 

She looks up at him and bares her teeth in a gruesome smile, canines snapping against each other and pearlescent fangs dripping with saliva that tells him that she’s _hungry._

 

He slips forward on silent feet to ease open the bathroom door, very sneaky and ninja-like, _so_ sneaky and ninja-like that he’s suddenly very sure of what bullshit he’s going to spout in Divination class about dreaming of past lives where he was a legendary shinobi, and with Shima behind him on noiseless paws, he successfully infiltrates the bathroom without alerting Hashirama, who is _still singing._

 

Really. It’s almost _too_ easy.

 

Madara rips open the shower curtain at the same time as Shima releases an earth-shattering roar, _far_ too loud for this early in the morning and almost certainly something that will have him yelled at by the R.A. for disturbing everyone else adjacent to the room he shares with Hashirama, but it’s more than worth it for the flailing and shrieking and stumbling that he records with his Sharingan.

 

Hashirama yelps like a kicked dog and falls onto the shower floor, banging his knees on the tiles and bringing down a small avalanche of hair products onto his miserable head, which makes him produce more undignified screaming that Madara absorbs with a truly sinful amount of self-satisfaction. Shima nips at Hashirama’s hair as he struggles to stand, shearing off a strand or two of glossy, wet brown with her razor-like teeth, and by the time he actually manages to get himself up, Madara’s already stripping his boxers off.

 

“Madara!” Hashirama wails, sounding not unlike a dying horse, “Why! Why are you _like_ this!”

 

“Get out of the shower, dumbass,” he says, brutally and with no sympathy whatsoever. “It’s my turn.”

 

“But I’m still soapy!”

 

“Suck it up! It’s _my turn!”_

 

Hashirama whimpers, but he recognizes the way Madara puffs out his cheeks before he’s about to spit out a Grand Fireball, and with much grumbling and complaining he acquiesces. “Gods, you’re the _worst_ dormmate, you know? Not even Tobirama yanks me out of the shower so he can steal all the hot water, and he’s used up all the electricity in the house _several_ times while I was mid-shower for his dumb little experiments!”

 

Madara cheerfully winds his way around Shima’s sinuous form and steps into the shower, purring with pleasure when he discovers that the water is still hot. “It takes me _forty-five minutes_ to wash my hair, asshole, and that’s _with_ magic, so you and your stupid silky mane are just going to have to deal.” He fumbles around on the shower floor for his shampoo, and it’s then that he realizes that he’s not alone, aside from Hashirama and Shima.

 

Beady black eyes bore into dick from the soap dish, and with a rather bird-like squawk Madara clasps his hands protectively over his junk. The damp little ball of spines doesn’t let up on her glaring, though, and she tips up her nose so that she can meet his eyes with one of the nastiest expressions Madara’s ever seen on anyone, animal or not, daemon or not.

 

Shamefully, in his pleasure with himself for embarrassing Hashirama and in his lingering tiredness, he’d forgotten about Uni altogether – always a crucial mistake to make, and one that he should really know better than to fall into by now. She bares her sharp needle-like teeth at him and _hisses_ like the vicious little rat she is.

 

“Uni?” Hashirama calls, his voice distant now. “Uni, you’re still in there, aren’t you?”

 

He hears Shima curse softly and turn tail for the dorm room, that traitor, and soon he’s alone with Hashirama’s daemon.

 

They might never find his body.

 

“That was poorly done of you,” Uni says judgmentally after a long pause that turns his blood to ice.

 

“Uh-huh,” Madara says, eyes darting towards his shampoo bottle, trying to figure out whether the risk of going for it is worth it or not when a sadistic hedgehog stands in the way of him and his prize. “Yep, yep, very sorry.”


	19. Chapter 19

“Okay,” Tobirama snaps, propping his fists on his hips and glaring at Uchiha Izuna with the evilest eye he can muster, “ _no._ I’m drawing the line, Uchiha. You don’t get to subject me to this.”

The expression on his rival’s face could generously be described as a shit-eating smirk as the man’s grin widens deviously, teeth glittering in the low light of the bathroom and eyes narrowed in delight.

“You _have_ to, Tobirama-chan,” Izuna says, his voice high-pitched and gleeful and utterly at odds with his demonic smile. “It’s necessary for the ritual, and that means it’s gonna happen. Lie down and take off the towel, you coward, it’s time to get down and dirty and _intimate!”_

“You are not fucking _waxing_ me and you are most certainly not waxing my _ass,_ you monster, do you honestly think I’ll roll over for you because some dusty old book purportedly tells me to—”

“Well, I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t _really_ hoped it would be that easy—”

“—I’m going to die anyway, why does it fucking matter that I have body hair like a normal person, which I _shave,_ by the way, for improved hydrodynamics—”

“—yes, yes, I noticed, Senju, your chest looks very lickable, but that doesn’t matter, because you have to be – according to scripture - bare before his Highness, and that means _bare,_ baby—”

“—I look fucking _what!”_ Tobirama squawks, equal parts surprised and insulted and confused, but he doesn’t get the chance to say anything else before Izuna is on him, his poor towel almost falling away at the violent tackle that pins him to the ground. They’re kissing before they know it, sloppily biting and licking into each other’s mouths, with Izuna moaning messily every time Tobirama nips at his plush, swollen lips, and that’s how Kagami finds them five minutes later; the only thing that’s really changed is the sudden and unpleasant erections that made them realize that there exists some amount of _attraction_ between them and Tobirama’s new position perched on Izuna’s lap, rutting into his stomach with the towel providing minimal protection from the elements and exposure and almost no protection at all from too-nosy eight-year-olds.

Kagami and Izuna screech in sync at the exact same pitch and volume, perfectly calculated to shatter Tobirama’s fucking eardrums, and before he knows it, he’s being dumped into the empty furo like a sack of rice as uncle and nephew scream incoherently in horror at each other.


	20. a request fic for kitsunesongs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is not the whole thing, just an excerpt i deleted but liked enough to post! i hope yall enjoy this teaser :-)

Madara can sense it the moment Tobirama consents. His chakra goes from freezing-fierce to sensual-sweet in an instant, abruptly warm and welcoming where there had been only killing intent and Suiton energy.

Izuna’s eyes flicker to him; a question, a request for permission, an inquiry about what he, as their Clan’s Head alpha plans to do with their new omega.

Madara smirks. He conveys his message softly, subtly, and as soon as Izuna understands, his face absolutely lights up in the dirtiest smile he’s ever seen on his sweet, sassy little brother.

This is going to be _fun._

“Izuna?” Tobirama asks, voice cross. “Madara? What are you doing?”

They don’t break gazes for another long second, nodding in synchronization before they turn simultaneously to their new Senju, who arches his eyebrows at them and wiggles around impatiently, pointedly.

He wants the ropes off.

Unfortunately for him, this is not necessarily about what _he_ wants. His alphas get to sate their pleasures too, and while they intend on making sure he enjoys every moment of it, there’s nothing wrong with a little harmless play.

“Madara? Madara, what are you doing, _no—”_

“Consider it payback,” he says sweetly, scooping a helpless, writhing Tobirama up over his shoulder, “for trying to drown me no less than three separate times in under two hours.”

“Hardly _my_ fault that you can’t breathe underwater,” he hisses in retaliation, squirming violently and attempting fruitlessly to shake himself loose of Madara’s firm grip. He’s strong, alpha-strong, and he’s second only to _Hashirama_ in terms of skill and power; Tobirama’s not going to free himself anytime soon, and more than that, in a minute or so, he won’t _want_ to.

Izuna cackles wildly, and Madara allows himself to smile.

He’s never going to want to leave them again. He can be plenty free, safe with them in the Uchiha compound, in that village for which Hashirama traded his little brother to his greatest enemies, happy as their treasured mate and the mother of their children, living life to the fullest as their omega.

“Uchiha,” Tobirama snaps, and he’s getting angry, now, “let me _down_ or you’ll regret it.”

“Fine,” Madara replies carelessly before chucking the omega into a pine tree with enough force to shake the trunk and scatter evergreen needles on the forest floor.

While Tobirama’s still dazed and cursing, Izuna strikes, untying the marriage rope with a single skillful tug and then proceeding to knot his arms together behind his back in a manner that will prevent him from trying anything with hand seals, and Madara savors the sight of blood-red spider’s silk against moon-pale skin.

They have _excellent_ taste.

“—bastards, let me go _right now,_ this is _not_ what I agreed to—”

Tobirama squirms around on the ground, stumbling to his feet, but Izuna is there to meet him, and in his weakened, trussed-up state it’s easy for his little brother to wrestle their new bitch back to the forest floor, pinning his head to the leaves and the mulch and gently guiding his back into a beautiful arch that leaves his bare ass exposed in the air. Tobirama gasps and writhes, but with the sudden turn the situation has taken towards the sexual, he’s abruptly amenable to their demands, and Madara gets to take his time and stalk closer, Sharingan sliding across every inch of naked skin, porcelain-white flushed pink with heat and inked red in intricate lines that cross and weave across the surfaces of his back and ass and legs.


	21. excerpt from entropy

Tobirama thinks that he gets to have boundaries, and it would be honestly kind of cute if it weren’t so goddamn _infuriating._ He’s Madara’s to torture, Madara’s to ruin, he’s not _allowed_ to have things like _personal space_ and _safe zones_ and _bodily autonomy._

 

He’s deluded himself into thinking that being with his students means that Madara can’t degrade him in public, that being in the house he shares with Hashirama means that Madara can’t fuck him until he’s crying, that going out on missions means he’s allowed to sell his body out to _other people._

 

Ridiculous.

 

The only thing more stupid than that is the dumb little _expectations_ Tobirama has for them. He has to fight to keep himself from reaching out to hold Madara’s hand when they walk side-by-side for any length of time. He stares, stares, stares, constantly, his eyes burning a hole into the side of Madara’s head like he won’t notice. He tries to slip clothing emblazoned with the Senju vajra into Madara’s dresser when he comes over, and if he didn’t know any better, he’d say that the man looks almost disappointed when he’s curtly informed that said articles have been burned.

 

They’re not a couple. They’re not friends. They’re not even enemies.

 

They are Madara and his pet Senju, Madara and his fucktoy, Madara and his disgusting albino bastard. They aren’t anything else.

 

They never will be anything else.


	22. excerpt from serendipity

Madara’s breath billows into the air in great plumes of steamy silver-white, curling away into the inky sky and vanishing beneath the light of the stars. The night is bright and cold, bitterly so, and the Nakano’s waters run dark and deep.

 

He hasn’t told anyone about Tobirama.

  
It’s been months, and there have been tens if not hundreds of opportunities for him to share, even if only to Izuna, but he’s kept it to himself for some petty, selfish reason. Tonight is the night where he sees if his unasked-for kindness pays off; tonight is the night on which he may very well make peace once and for all with the bellicose Senju.

 

He senses his quarry in the distance, darting towards the Senju side of the riverbank like a firework, throwing around anxious energy like there’s no one but Madara to notice, and he may very well be right. Tobirama has more precision and a larger range than he could ever lay claim to, and if he feels secure enough to not bother to reign in his lashing chakra signature, then surely, he really is secure.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Madara thinks he sees a shadow glowing yellow by the skipping-stones, but when he turns to look there’s nothing there. Only a shadow, only the stones. The moon is full and the spirits are restless, and it’s just some minor yōkai playing a prank on him.

 

He rests his hands on the hilt of his gunbai and scans the darkness with his Sharingan, and Senju Tobirama emerges from the black, stinking so strongly of alpha that Madara can smell him from clear across the river. Overcompensation is nothing he’s unfamiliar with, but every move Tobirama makes is a calculated one, and if there’s any assumption that he takes away from smelling that scent, it’s an assumption that the man will have planted into his head.

 

Madara scowls and charges a handful of Fire chakra into the gunbai uchiwa, gratified when the snow around it melts into water, soaking the riverbank. Tobirama snorts at the intimidation play, unimpressed as ever, and crosses his arms – why are his sleeves so _short?_ Does he _want_ frostbite – so that he can tap pale, slender fingers impatiently against his armored bicep.

 

Neither of them speaks. Neither of them moves. Neither of them so much as blinks, and for an agonizing stretch of time, Madara holds eye contact with the Senju heir, spinning Sharingan meeting hellfire red and holding.

 

Tobirama is unafraid of a genjutsu, and he stares Madara dead in the eyes, his customary sneer plastered onto his face. It’s not quite so hideous when he remembers what that very same face looks like slack with pleasure, and his cock twitches in interest at the thought of Tobirama stripped of all his armor and his facades and back to his omega self.

 

 _No._ Madara is here for a reason, for a proposal, for the good of his Clan; if he wants to daydream about his little brother’s worst enemy, he can do it on his own time, but certainly not _now,_ and really, if he’s wise, not _ever._

 

It’s dangerous to stop thinking of Senju as anything but what he is: the white demon of the battlefield, a menace with sword and Suiton, second only to Hashirama in his Clan and a truly legendary ninja in his own right. Really, it’s dangerous for Madara to be here at all, alone with a man who is clearly as prepared for combat as he can physically be, but there is no life without the risk of death, and all he’s here to do is to create for his Clan a life with considerably less risk of death.

  
The wind turns, and Madara’s hair blows before him, streaming like a great wiry flag in the gust and whipping about him. More importantly, it sends his scent over to Tobirama’s side of the river, and while he can’t count on physiological markers to win this argument, exerting his alpha dominance over a man who is very definitely an omega can’t hurt his chances.

  
It hurts his chances. Tobirama snarls, vicious and bestial, and reaches for his sword; he only relaxes when Madara stops releasing his pheromones, but he doesn’t drop the glare, and his hand doesn’t move from the hilt of his weapon.

 

He’s listening, or as close to it as he’s bound to get. Now is Madara’s chance.

 

“Senju,” he calls, “come on over here. I’m not going to bisect you and we have quite a lot to talk about.” There, that was good: relatively polite but still vague enough to conserve his air of mystery.

 

“Are you fucking insane,” comes the reply, and Madara tries to hold back a groan. He’s being so good and diplomatic, and the damnable Senju isn’t bothering to appreciate his efforts at _all!_

 

Fucking Senju, he thinks with a mental growl, scowling into his mantle and shaking his bangs out of his eyes.

 

“No, I’m not. Just – we need to talk about what happened. With the mission, and Minamoto.”

 

“We really don’t,” Tobirama says, narrowing his eyes. “I could just kill you, you know. I’ve been training for it ever since that week and I’m strong enough now, and surrounded by my element, and you’re not wearing heavy armor.”

 

“That would be counterproductive,” Madara returns, trying not to betray the weariness in his bones with his tone of voice. Of _course_ the Senju came here only to assassinate him; he’s a fucking ninja, and he can’t risk his secret getting out, not that he’s aware that Madara hasn’t told anybody and probably never will. “I have a proposition for you, and I want you to read it out and consider it before you go back to trying to kill me, okay?”

 

Tobirama squints at him, suspicion in every line of his form.

 

“Please? I’m saying _please,_ Senju, what more could you want from me?”

 

“Your head,” he snaps back, “and your knot, so I can stuff it and frame it as a warning to any other alphas who try to get one up on me by using my dynamic against me.”

 

Madara sighs. Politeness never gets him anywhere. According to Izuna, it’s because he’s ‘a chronic asshole’ and ‘never really polite to _anyone,_ Aniki, not even Baa-chan’ and also ‘roughly as approachable as a hedgehog with rabies’, but Izuna is a little rat bastard and his opinion doesn’t count, so he’ll graciously choose to believe that Tobirama, with his inexplicable inability to understand even the very basics of social interaction, simply doesn’t know what politeness is.

 

Madara picks up his gunbai, heaves it over his shoulder, and takes a step onto the surface of the Nakano, but before he can get any further than that, the water rolls and heaves beneath his feet, and he has to jump back or fall into the icy depths. With a manly, definitely not high-pitched screech, he does so, only barely managing to clear the riverbank before the dark waves surge up and grab at his sandals.

 

From the opposite shore, Tobirama looks almost unbearably smug at having reduced the great Uchiha Madara to a dancing, squawking madman, and Madara resolves to just get it over with and kill him if his offer falls through. Damn Hashirama and damn his grief; Tobirama is an _asshole,_ and that’s what matters, definitely more than the fact that he’s very handsome and masculine and tall and pretty and that his heat-scent smells like sea salt and molten chocolate and omega slick—

 

“Uchiha,” the bastard calls, blessedly interrupting whatever horrible corruption had suddenly taken root in Madara’s thoughts, “are you finally losing it? I thought you had something to show me.”

 

“Are you admitting that you’re willing to look at it?”

 

Tobirama sniffs derisively. “Of _course_ not, it was touched by an Uchiha. If you were willing to throw it over here so that I could stay a safe distance away from it and examine it from there, though, I’d maybe reconsider my position on this matter.”

 

Madara masterfully resists the powerful urge to leap into the Nakano and drown himself then and there.

 

“The scroll’s not got _cooties_ on it, if that’s what you’re worried about. I promise that it’s completely and totally harmless, and that it’s just a goddamn scroll. What’s the worst thing that a piece of stationery could do, Senju demon?”

 

“Be around Hashirama for any period of time and develop a _personality_ as a result, consequently leading me to spend an entirely unreasonable amount of time in the healing tents getting treated for papercuts deeper than anything your brother has ever dealt me.”

 

Madara considers this. Knowing his oldest friend, it’s frighteningly possible, and the grimace on Tobirama’s face is borne of anguish and experience.

 

“Fine. It doesn’t have any _Hashirama_ cooties, but that’s the best I can promise. It won’t eat you when you open it, I swear.”

 

“No Hashirama cooties is good enough for me,” Tobirama agrees suddenly with quite a lot of verve.

 

Madara briefly wonders just how much he’s exposed to plants that have been Hashirama’d, and then quickly banishes the thought. To consider it might engender some small amount of _sympathy_ for Senju Tobirama, and that’s even worse than any amount of Hashirama cooties.

 

He hurls the scroll at Senju, upset when he elegantly snatches it out of midair instead of permitting it to smack him in the face like he’d intended it to.


	23. extras from serendipity

Tobirama’s snarl is a feral, bestial thing, lips peeling back to expose the glittering white of his teeth and face creasing into something both hideous and beautiful. Splayed on his back on the futon beneath him, Minamoto still looks helplessly aroused – no doubt due to the omega heat pheromones that are fogging the room and giving Madara, too, an erection he can’t control – and while he seems to realize just what kind of incredible danger his life is in, he makes no move to shove Senju off of him, instead producing a low-pitched growl and attempting to drag Tobirama back down onto his cock.

  
For his efforts, Senju, an _omega,_ the most _vicious_ little bitch Madara has ever had the misfortune of laying eyes on, snaps at him, whispering something soft with the cadence of a threat, judging by his tone and the way Minamoto goes pale with fear. He’s still a despot, still a bastard, still an alpha, but he’s not entirely _stupid_ either, and any smart man knows to fear Senju Tobirama when in close proximity, regardless of whether or not his clarity of mind has been stolen by his estrous cycle.

 

Actually, Madara reflects, refusing to wince away from the manner in which Tobirama’s chakra thrashes wildly about him, coalescing into a cloak that coats his skin not unlike a raw mimicry of the Susanoo, _especially_ if his clarity of mind has been stolen by his estrous cycle. A rabid animal is the most dangerous kind, after all, and he may not be ill, but the Senju is beyond human, now, lithe and feline like his summons and shockingly _pretty._

 

Oh, _no,_ Madara thinks, brandishing his gunbai and shaking his head a bit so that his hair hides his blush, we’re _both_ fucked.

 

Both of them, Madara and Minamoto each, rendered helpless before the most glorious, terrible creature the earth has ever known. It’s not that using the heat cycle to get a mark to drop their defenses is entirely _unheard_ of, but it’s certainly far from common. It’s truly a credit to Tobirama that he can maintain the professionalism required to kill when there’s little doubt that all he’s thinking about is getting fucked, maybe by Madara, in a little cave by the Nakano where they could meet discreetly and just be _together,_ regardless of their ancestry—

 

No, no, _no._

 

Sage, this is going so _poorly._

 

Madara really doesn’t know quite what to do. Senju won’t dare to meet his eyes, no fool even in the haze of heat, so a Sharingan-based genjutsu is out of the question. He can’t really use his gunbai properly in close quarters like this or he risks harming Minamoto, who is naked and vulnerable and rendered utterly useless by the very same scent that’s slowly driving Madara to utter insanity. He can’t do anything, really, since Tobirama has Minamoto pinned and completely at his mercy. He could kill him at any moment with any number of techniques and Madara would be helpless to do anything but watch.

  
It was planned – it had to be. Not that he thinks that Tobirama is by any means an idiot, but that kind of circumstance has to be engineered, and it’s exactly the manner of nasty, brutally competent little plot that he’s come to expect of the Senju heir.

 

Madara is also not an idiot, but, well. He’s only human. He’s been resisting the smell of omega in heat all fucking day, and Tobirama’s scent is the most delicious thing his nose has ever known.

 

He can’t use regular intimidation, can’t use his dōjutsu, can’t use his weapon, so what does he have left?

 

His own alpha pheromones.

 

Forcefully injecting his own scent, laden with grandiose authority and the metallic burn of molten metal into the air turns out to be the single biggest mistake of his life, and also a turning point.

 

A lot of things happen at once.

 

Minamoto, reduced to a raging ball of hormones, is angered at the obvious show of power and presence from another alpha in the company of an omega who he clearly believes belongs to him, and he growls threateningly at Madara in a feeble attempt to warn him off and away. Tobirama’s hellfire eyes nearly vanish, the brilliant red of his irises entirely swallowed up by his blown-black pupils, and he climbs off of Minamoto, powerful thighs gleaming with slick in the lamplight and expression intent on one thing and one thing alone. Madara himself takes the opportunity to draw a kunai, rapidly trying to figure out how he’s going to incapacitate what is very clearly a feral omega without also killing him, and eventually deciding on just trying to subjugate Tobirama further, even though his first attempt really didn’t go right at all.

 

When he stands up to his full height and growls at the Senju, baring his sharpened alpha canines and snapping his teeth, it only makes Tobirama _angry,_ and he visibly switches priorities – no longer does he want into Madara’s pants with the burning passion of a thousand searing suns ( ~~a real shame, given just how much Madara would like him there~~ ).

**Author's Note:**

> thank you hozier. this one's for you
> 
> im a liddle wild posting goblin and i CANNOT be stopped


End file.
